









CQESRSGHT DEPOSm 


































































































. 






































































COMPLETE 

LIFE BUILDING 

and 

ALL-NATURE METHOD 

of the 

RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


FOR TWO CLASSES 

Those who HAVE good health and wish to RETAIN it. 
Those who have LOST good health and wish to REGAIN it. 


“GOLDEN JUBILEE” EDITION 

1876—1926 



ISSUED BY THE 

RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 

Hopewell, New Jersey 











Copyright, 1923 

BY 

THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 

All Rights Reserved 



PRICE—For the convenience of strangers who may see this volume 
we will give at this place the following information: The nriee nf 
book is FOUE DOLLAES, sent prepaid by us to any part of Z W orM a< 

0U ^-if X J )enSe "4. i 1101 ^ 68 not onl y the many remarkable treatments and 
methods contained herein, but also, if desired by the purchaser, lifemem 
bership free in the Ralston Health Club without dues or obligations of 
any kma. Many delightful experiences and advantages follow in the 
after years of such membership. Eemittanee should be made to “ 
RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 
Hopewell, New Jersey 


JUN21 *23 

©C1A705899 

rvv^ 



DEDICATION 


This “Golden Jubilee” Edition of Complete Life 
Building is respectfully dedicated to those loyal Mem¬ 
bers of the Ralston Health Club who, in the past half 
century, have been loyal to themselves in matters of 
health, and who have thereby served their friends and 
loved ones by not becoming unnecessary burdens to them. 

The Author, 

Edmund Shaftesbury. 




PUBLISHERS’ ANNOUNCEMENT 


As all our old time Members know, we formerly issued three 
books of health in the Ralston System, as follows: 

1. The Book of General Membership for Class One; or those 
who HAVE good health and wish to RETAIN it. 

2. The Book of Inside Membership for the beginners of Class 
Two. 

3. The Book of Complete Membership for those who have 
LOST good health and wish to REGAIN it; meaning Class Two. 

But of late years there has been a very urgent demand on the 
part of persons who seek perfect health to be supplied with a 
complete system in ONE VOLUME. This is not an easy thing 
to do. If the volume is made too bulky, it will be inconvenient 
to use, and the cost will be out of reach of those who may be in 
the greatest need of it. 

The command, however, was given to accomplish the desired 
result and overcome the two objections: 

1. Avoid a cumbersome and unwieldy book. 

2. Avoid the great expense of a large work. 

Yet include the whole system, complete in every detail, with 
no loss of value. 

It has taken four years to blend into the present volume all 
the important facts of the 115 editions that have been issued 
in the past; to bring in all the NEW FACTS of the very latest 
moment, the most recent knowledge, and the results of countless 
experiments that place this work ahead of anything now within 
reach of the health-seeking public. 

The price, FOUR DOLLARS, does away with the former 
prices of two dollars for the first, two dollars for the second and 
seven dollars for the third, or large Complete book; a total of 
eleven dollars in all; now in a more reasonable and usable size 
for only four dollars. 

The “GOLDEN JUBILEE’’ is so-called because it refers to 
the celebration of our FIFTY YEARS of existence. 

The Period of this “GOLDEN JUBILEE” begins with the 
issuing of this volume and ends with the last month of the 
year 1926. 

During this Period the CONCESSION will be in vogue as 
announced in the final pages of this book. 

5 


PERFECTLY FRANK 


We are not in any commercial business; and have but one de¬ 
sire at this time, which is to do all the good in the world that we 
possibly can. Hence we make the- following statement, which 
will be found to be the acme of frankness: 

We do not have a large number of books for sale in this Club. 
There used to be three, as has been stated on the preceding page. 
Now we have only the following: 

1. The regular 115th edition of LIFE BUILDING, selling at 
the usual price of two dollars a copy, whether in lots of one or 
a thousand; no reduction even to wholesalers. This fixed price 
is due to the fact that it is the basic system for advancing de¬ 
grees and earning other works not in the Club. Its contents are 
of intensive interest, more so than any novel, and valuable for 
thousands of details not obtainable otherwise. Its binding is 
plain. 

2. The large old work of COMPLETE MEMBERSHIP sells 
at seven dollars. YOU do not need that work; it is too large 
and too heavy to handle readily, and its value can be had in 
better form in the new work which is known as 

3. This Book of COMPLETE LIFE BUILDING. 

The copy you now hold in your hand contains less than 
twenty-four percent of the regular Life Building, and much of 
that was borrowed originally from the Complete Membership 
Book. Over seventy-six percent of its contents are wholly NEW, 
up-to-date, and embody the entire new methods of the Club, 
which are a revolution in. the treatment of disease. For persons 
seeking perfect health, it contains everything of value in the 
regular Life Building and in'the Complete Book; and is solely 
devoted to health-building. 

This new COMPLETE LIFE BUILDING is printed on the 
best book paper; is bound in the most expensive cloth that can 
be purchased, and is stamped in pure gold. It is a work of 
splendid beauty and of enduring qualities. It speaks for itself. 
Therefore if only one book is wanted this “Golden Jubilee” 
volume is that work. 

It is the GREATEST HEALTH CLASSIC OF ALL TIME. 

6 


PREVENTION THAT PREVENTS 

In the city of Paris, France, prior to* the war, if a pedestrian 
was hit by an automobile, the pedestrian was arrested and fined 
or imprisoned, if he contributed to the accident by his careless¬ 
ness. This measure, to the surprise of observers, reduced auto¬ 
mobile mishaps involving injury and death to pedestrians, fully 
seventy-five percent. On its face it does not seem logical, but it 
was in fact; and it worked. Even if it could not meet with the 
approval of others, was it worth while, to save human life by 
reducing human carelessness ? 

In the same city of Paris, prior to the war, but not since, as 
things are rather chaotic there now, if a driver through care¬ 
lessness injured a pedestrian, the driver was fined and impris¬ 
oned, and compelled to pay damages to the party hurt. 

In this same city of Paris, prior'to the war, if a driver through 
carelessness, killed a pedestrian, he was imprisoned for a long 
term of years. In America if the same, kind of killing occurs, 
the driver is fined and cautioned not to repeat the offence. 

In Paris, prior to the war, if a drunken, driver killed a pedes¬ 
trian the driver was sentenced to life imprisonment. In America 
if a drunken driver kills a pedestrian, he is fined; bu,t if he kills 
a second one he is sentenced to imprisonment for three years; 
and, after serving a few months, is released on account of his ill 
health. 

The result has been that in France nearly every accident 
from such causes was checked; it was prevention that prevented. 
In America these accidents are on the increase; there is not a 
city or locality that does not show a steady annual growth of 
deaths from careless drivers or drunken drivers. It is because 
this country does not believe in prevention; and when it is too 
late, it says in effect, oh, well, these people are dead, and punish¬ 
ing the offenders will not bring them back to life. But what 
about the victims who had as much right to live as drunken 
drivers and speed maniacs? 

The lesson we learn is that there are two ways of going about 


8 


Complete Life Building 

a thing; one stops mishaps and premature deaths by shutting 
off the cause*; the other waits until it is too late and says, what 
is the use- now ? 

A certain city many years ago established a code of fines for 
cases of ill health. The sick had to pay the fines. Many million¬ 
aires have contracts with their family doctors that for every day 
of illness - suffered by any member of the family, the doctor must 
pay a fine out of his annual allowance which is always generous. 
These contracts are well known and are invited by the doctors. 
In this class of cases the fines are paid by the physicians, who 
become unusually careful of their patients. 

In this city referred to, the patients themselves paid the fines; 
and it served to call their attention to the fact that nearly every 
case of sickness was preventable if they adopted a kind of pre¬ 
vention that prevented. They did. In fact they studied them¬ 
selves and the causes of illness and soon saw that every form of 
sickness, with very rare exceptions, was unnecessary. 

The time will come, so says one of the best observers of human 
conditions, when it will be made a criminal offence to become 
unnecessarily ill. This sounds harsh; so did the French edict 
that punished the pedestrian who got hit by an automobile; but 
as the trend of civilization is- to lessen suffering and premature 
death, it is along the line of progress; and, as the French system 
reduced the accidents and deaths seventy-five percent, so if we 
can save that proportion of sufferers from ill health, we are jus¬ 
tified in the humane course to that end. 

Now we have seen that sick persons who through carelessness 
became unnecessarily ill in a certain city, were fined; that the 
doctors of millionaires if their patients are ill, are fined; and 
we nearly forgot to look at the great class of people who must 
be fined when relatives or friends are sick. 

If you are sick, who loses time and perhaps health in taking 
care of you ? If you are blameless, it is the misfortune of your¬ 
self and of those who must make sacrifices to look after you. If 
you are to blame, it is unfair to impose these burdens on others. 
They are penalized for your fault. 

The following cases are typical, and are but a few out of. 
countless thousands of instances where people are fined because 
of the unfairness of others. 

1. The matinee girl, or the young lady who goes to the movies 


Nature’s Doctors 


9 


afternoons, gets her soda water and ice cream on the way to the 
theatre, or on the home trip; and during the performance she 
munches candies on an empty stomach; with the result that she 
has no appetite for the evening meal, which she neglects or picks 
at; and in the course of a few days is taken sick. If her time 
had any value it is now a dead loss. Her mother had many other 
duties requiring attention, but must wait on the sick girl; her 
father must employ a doctor and go out perhaps a long distance 
for medicine; fever sets in, and a nurse is required. Here are 
expenses, loss of time of mother, perhaps of father, worry and a 
home turned into a sick house all because this girl did not care. 
Her mother and father have been fined for her illness. 

2. A husband starts out with no rubbers on in the morning 
when it is damp and threatening. His wife asks him to protect 
himself. He laughs and says he guesses he knows what he is 
about; he is supposed to have some intelligence, so he claims. 
The rain increases, his feet get wet, he is chilled, takes a violent 
cold and comes home for a long attack of penumonia. Expensive 
doctors and nurses are employed; medicines bought by someone 
who must travel to drug stores to get them; the wife lays aside 
her regular work; all her enjoyment of life, all those hopes of 
relief from the weary burdens of daily existence are gone; she 
is shut in for weeks, and becomes dragged down to a bloodless 
face and deadened nerves, while she lives by day in the fear of 
death and hardly sleeps at night, until the crisis is over. Then 
she falls by the wayside. Who was fined ? Who was penalized ? 
Who really suffered most, the man whose obstinate perverseness 
exposed him to danger, or those who were compelled to make 
endless sacrifices because of his carelessness? This case is not 
only a true one, but has been repeated countless thousands of 
times. 

3. A woman stands in a doorway saying good-bye to a friend; 
both women. The woman is clad in her thin dress for indoors; 
and it is bitter weather. The friend has on her heavy outdoor 
clothing, fur coat and hat as well, and enjoys the air, while the 
thinly clad woman shivers and her voice chatters. Her husband, 
not wishing to hurt the feelings of the friend who is saying good¬ 
bye many times, brings a cloak to his wife at the door; but it is 
too late. That night she is in a violent fever, and the doctor is 
working over her. Pneumonia ensues, and the symptoms are 


10 


Complete Life Building 

alarming. Distant relatives are sent for. Doctors, nurses and 
relatives devote, themselves to her. Children are in tears as they 
are told she cannot live. Who was fined? Who paid the 
penalty ? 

4. A woman played cards much of the day and late into the 
night, not knowing that any intensive interest in card games 
checks the action of the lungs. By tests it is easily proved that 
respiration slows down to a minimum and apparently ceases 
during the playing of cards, with the result that the lungs lose 
their powers of resistance and become prey to the grippe, bron¬ 
chial troubles, and the destruction of nerve vitality. To add to 
the danger, the stomach demands food late at night if a person 
is awake. This woman had welsh rarebit, fried oysters and 
coffee. She became ill from acute indigestion, which lasted for 
a week; she was fortunate not to have been killed by it at the 
time of the first attack. After her partiaj recovery her heart 
that had always been in good condition, was affected and the 
result was that fatal pneumonia got to her lungs and she died, 
leaving three children under the age of twelve, and two grown 
up daughters. The sickness and funeral cost the husband over 
two thousand dollars. Who paid the fine ? Who was penalized ? 

These are typical cases that have been repeated in substance 
thousands of times. 

It is a fact that ninety-nine cases out of every hundred of 
sickness are easily preventable. This is why it has been claimed 
by a great observer of human conditions that the time will come 
when unnecessary sickness will be made a crime, because it 
places an awful penalty on others who are not in any way to 
blame. 


BOOK ONE 


HEALTH AND LIFE 
IN 

CONFLICT 

WITH 

DISEASE AND DEATH 











FIRST SECTION 


HEALTH AND LIFE 


S WE PROGRESS in the work of unfolding the 
vital laws of life, we drift gradually to that shore 
VjLJh where alone the secret of safety can be found. It is 
not disputed that thousands of men and women, as 
well as the young, die every year, yes, every month, 
by mis-using the digestive organs. It is not denied that certain 
food combinations bring quick death. It is a well known fact 
that acute indigestion is acute poisoning from gas generated 
from the struggle that takes place three times a day in the stom¬ 
ach ; ending, once for all, by the quick stroke at the heart. 

The most obvious fact in modern history is the rapid increase 
of diseases, and the still more rapid increase in the number of 
doctors and medicines, of surgeons, hospitals, instruments, 
nurses and the awful pageantry of endless funerals, taking from 
the scenes of life the very people who are needed in the world 
and who have a right to live. Count them! Count those of 
your acquaintances who have gone, too early, to their graves. 
Your time may be close at hand! No one knows what is to be 
the result of to-morrow’s indiscretion at the table. 

Yet it is well known that there must be two causes for every 
disease, one of which is the presence of poison within the body. 

If you are able to build the needed tissue that makes all your 
body, with its organs, nerves, bones, flesh and brain; and if you 
are able to so build all this tissue that there shall remain in the 
body none of the enemies of life, then the FIRST CAUSE OF 

13 








14 


Complete Life Building 

DISEASE cannot exist, and the second cause will be helpless; 
for it takes two to make a fight. 

We intend to prove that the first cause of all sickness and 
disease is from food enemies, except when there is inherited 
taint, and then this taint will remain dormant a lifetime in most 
cases unless food enemies develop it. How this first cause does 
its work will be shown with the utmost thoroughness in this 
work; and if it can be controlled we can make any person im¬ 
mune, and can cure with the special treatments that are con¬ 
tained in this volume all curable maladies, and many not sup¬ 
posed to be curable. 

The second cause consists of germs, where there is a second 
cause; and it will be learned that the air and all things carry 
these germs so that the battle is not with them as much as with 
the FIRST CAUSE; for in the absence of the latter the germs 
are powerless. You can never rid the world of the germs of dis¬ 
ease ; but you can rid humanity of the food enemies that cause 
the disease soil to grow in the body and make it a ready food 
for the germs. 


THE ROUND TABLE OF 1876 

In the days of the mythical King Arthur he had a round table 
built with commands that it must be perfectly round so that no 
preference could be shown to anyone who sat at it. Before this 
time, all tables were square or oblong. 

In the year 1876, seven men who had been student friends in 
former times, organized what they called a round table; and 
took under consideration the condition of the people in matters 
of health. In a city of 300,000 that winter it was stated by doc¬ 
tors that 290,000 suffered from colds, lung and throat troubles, 
and stomach disorders, and the death rate was alarmingly high! 
It was also learned that this disease wave was running with 
about the same violence everywhere in the land. 

Doctors were unable to check the epidemics; their methods 
were weak and frail; and medicines only added more poisons to 
the body that was already too heavily burdened with them from 
false diets. 

At this Round Table of 1876, there sat seven very earnest 



Nature’s Doctors 


15 


men; they were studious, sincere, and deeply desirous of ascer¬ 
taining the real cause of human illness. 

One of these men had been impressed with the oft quoted 
history of Louis Cornaro, the great Venetian, or Luigi as he 
was called in history. He was born in the year 1463; and about 
the year 1516 he found himself a physical wreck. He had defied 
all laws of health and caution, had been a gross drinker and in¬ 
discreet eater, and had caroused in many ways until he became 
bed-ridden. Had he not been a man of keen mind he would 
have died in that same year. The doctors told him his stomach 
was a wreck; his liver diseased beyond repair; his heart com¬ 
pletely out of order; his kidneys in the last stages of life; and 
his blood and skin in very mean condition, appearing in jaun¬ 
dice and irruptions. He got the idea that the human body was 
the result of the kind of food that was eaten; and he proceeded 
to restore his health solely by discarding all food that could not 
prove of perfectly wholesome value, depending largely on that 
class of eatables that, correspond as far as is possible with what 
are known as the TRUE FOODS of this book. The principle 
at stake was exactly the same. 

Gradually he began to build a new body; and with new tissue 
the diseased parts were cast away, and better flesh and organs 
took the places of the old parts. In the course of time he be¬ 
came perfectly well and lived to be 103 years of age, dying in 
1566; the records confirm both dates; and many notables of 
that period knew of the remarkable transformation in the man, 
and urged him to publish a book on the subject which he did. 
It will be seen that the greatest scientific man who ever lived, 
and probably the greatest man in an all round sense, Thomas 
A. Edison, refers to this Venetian in our later Round Table. 

With the consideration of the prevalence of universal sickness 
on the one hand, and the rebuilding of a broken and wrecked 
body on the other, the seven men who met at the Round Table in 
1876, after a careful discussion, voted to adjourn and meet again 
in two months, each to present his opinion of the most important 
thing in life for the benefit of the seeker after health. The next 
meeting came about as arranged, and in order to maintain the 
equality of the Round Table, lots were drawn to determine who 
should first present his views, and the order of doing so. 

“R”—The first man whose name was drawn laid upon the 


16 


Complete Life Building 

table, as was planned, the word that represented what in his 
opinion would be the most powerful aid to the recovery of 
health, and in the preservation of it after recovery. The word 
he placed there had for its initial letter, “R.” Can you sur¬ 
mise what this word was? Can you think of anything that is 
expressed by a word beginning with the letter “R” that plays 
a most powerful part in the search after health? In fact, each 
person was to select the thing that he considered the most essen¬ 
tial. Now what was it? 

He argued for it in the most convincing manner, and almost 
converted to his belief the other six; and he would have done so 
if they had not had their own ideas of something more impor¬ 
tant. But all agreed that what he put forward was surely essen¬ 
tial to health. What was it ? 

“A”—The next man to be called on by lot laid upon the table 
a word beginning with the letter “A.” This was supported by 
his arguments in a most able manner, and it was agreed that it 
was as essential as any other influence in a life of health. What 
was it? Think of some great thing that must be made a part 
of a health system. 

“L”—Now the third man drawn by lot was called upon and 
laid on the table a word beginning with the letter “L.” Some¬ 
one made the remark that it looked as if a word were being 
spelled; and one might come out of these first letters, or initials, 
if they proceeded in this way. But as the drawing had been 
wholly by chance, and as none present had any word in mind 
for the group of initials, the coining of a new name was out of 
the question; so it seemed at first. Then no one knew what 
words the others had. But what health influence is expressed 
by a word beginning with the letter “L”? Can you surmise? 

“S”—The fourth man was now asked to lay his word on the 
table, and there was considerable excitement when it was found 
to have for its initial the letter “S.” He discussed it warmly, 
as the others had done in defence of their individual ideas, and 
all agreed that it was a very essential thing in the study and 
practice of health. What was it? What powerful influence in 
the cause of health is indicated by a word beginning with the 
letter 4 ‘ S ’’ ? Try to find it. 

“T’-Number five was next in order. Like all the others he 
supported his claims with zeal and clearness, and almost con- 


Nature’s Doctors 


17 


vinced them that his was the most important. What was it? 
What word in health matters begins with the letter “T”? 
Think it over. 

“ 0 ”—The sixth word was laid on the table by man number 
six and it began with the letter “O.” What was it? 

“N”—As soon as this seventh letter appeared as the initial 
of the seventh word, everybody arose and exclaimed that it was 
most remarkable for it spelled a name; the name R-A-L-S-T-O-N. 
This is the way in which the words came by lot, and their initial 
letters made the name that the Club now bears. It was acci¬ 
dent, or coincidence, pure and simple. Yet it closely spelled 
the ancestral name of the man who was destined to write the 
books of the Club; and here was what seemed the more wonder¬ 
ful coincidence. 

These seven men had desired to organize a Club and had not 
been able to find a name for it; so this word was adopted as the 
name that has gone round the world; and that has been given to 
116 editions of its book. 

THE ROUND TABLE OF 1926 

In anticipation of that meeting, and in advance of it, let us 
hear from our seven letter men. 

“R” —It is still true that my claim of the most essential thing 
in the cause of health is that which is represented by the word 
the first letter of which is “R.” I am going to tell you what 
that word is, even if the other gentlemen will not disclose theirs. 
In England many years ago, two very earnest young men while 
at college, determined to live carefully, and by a fixed series of 
daily habits. They did this, and it soon spread until millions 
adopted the name at least. They lived by a method; and were 
called Methodists; John and Charles Wesley. The greatest of 
all historians, Macaulay, said of them: ‘ ‘ Their influence changed 
the face of English history/’ Now I believe that regularity of 
habits, regularity of sleeping, regularity of eating, regularity 
of the functions of the body, and a daily system to live by, is 
the most powerful influence on health that can be found. I in¬ 
tended to write the word Regularity, but I thought it rather 
stiff sounding, so I used the finer word, Regime, having the same 
initial letter “R.” If our readers will turn to the latter part 


18 


Complete Life Building 

of this book, they will find a very large Section devoted to the 
famous Ralston Regime, which has been in private circulation, 
but never before included in any public book. It is a very 
delightful way in which and by which to live. 

So “R” could not keep his secret, and has let it out; thereby 
depriving you of the pleasure of surmising it. 

But do not forget to hunt up Ralston Regime in this book. 

“A”—This man has just as great a claim for priority as “R” 
but did not give all his reasons then. As time has passed and 
experience has ripened, he has had many more reasons for ad¬ 
hering to this claim for first place. He is a surgeon of the high¬ 
est rank in his profession. He says that not only what he has 
seen, but what many other surgeons have told him, and what he 
has read in reports, have proved to him the truth of the asser¬ 
tion made years ago that 999 persons out of every 1,000; or 
practically all human beings; are suffering from congestion of 
the stomach and membranes; and that their bodies are READY 
for sickness. By READY he says he does not mean, prepared to 
resist it, but READY in the same sense as land is ready for the 
plant when the soil is fit to receive and give growth to the plant. 

Practically every person’s body is ready to receive the germs 
of disease and give growth to them. 

“L” is another surgeon, and stated that he wished to confirm 
these facts. He liked the selection of the word READY as in¬ 
dicating that the human body was a fit subject for attack. His 
account of his interpretation of the meaning of this word 
READY is as follows: 

The part of the body that generates the life that sustains it is 
all in its membranes. The central section of the system of mem¬ 
branes is the stomach which is lined with membranes, and they 
carry the supplies for the digestion of food. It is exceedingly 
important to remember this one great fact: that the membranes 
of the stomach are the central part of the life-generating system, 
on which all else depends. And their condition determines what 
kind of nutrition is possible for the health of the rest of the 
body. The stomach membranes carry life or death to all the 
rest of the body. 

Then traveling downward through the long canal and around 
all the organs, is a complex system of membranes that reflects 
the condition of the membranes of the stomach. Bright’s Dis- 


Nature’s Doctors 


19 


ease of the kidneys, which is generally fatal, is nothing but the 
disease of the membranes that surround the kidneys. Appen¬ 
dicitis, that often results in death, is due to the disease of the 
membrane covering it, letting in foul matter; and when appen¬ 
dicitis is followed by death it is because this decay travels to 
the great membrane that lines the abdominal cavity and brings 
on peritonitis. All membrane diseases of prominence have words 
ending in it is. There are lots* of them. 

Now traveling upward from the stomach as a center, we fol¬ 
low the canal to the throat and mouth, and find more itis mala¬ 
dies ; from gastritis of the stomach, to bronchitis of the lung 
passages, laryngitis of the throat, pharyngitis of the cavity back 
of the nose and mouth, and so on until we get to meningitis, the 
fatal disease of the membranes of the brain. 

“S” at this stage, who is perhaps a very thorough searcher 
after the deepest causes of sickness, adds the result of his 
observation: 

Out of hundreds of thousands of autopsies, it is agreed by 
doctors and surgeons that there has never been an exception to 
the discovery of a state of CONGESTION central at the stom¬ 
ach, which has spread along the membranes. 

This CONGESTION is a semi-inflammation; it is blind in¬ 
flammation because it gives no distinct pain, but manifests itself 
in a degree of irritability that affects the nerves and thinking 
powers. It produces unrest and an indefinable desire for some¬ 
thing that will change the regular routine of the day. If any¬ 
thing goes wrong, there is a sudden flight into the use of relief 
words, without knowing why they should be necessary. 

In autopsies, without exception, the stomach is congested, and 
shows unmistakable signs of having been congested for many 
years, possibly all through life. 

There is not one exception to this condition. 

Then following the line of the canal, it is seen that this con¬ 
gestion or semi-inflammation, has traveled downward nearly the 
whole length; and upward to the lung passages, to the throat, 
and often to the brain. For this reason, we find an explanation 
of the claims of experts in insanity that some forms of mental 
diseases are due to congestion of the stomach which has reached 
the brain membranes. 

“T” who has had much experience in this line of investiga- 


20 


Complete Life Building 

tion says: All congestion begins in the stomach for the reason 
that it cannot begin anywhere else. This is a very important 
fact. There are two classes of diseases; one comes from in¬ 
herited taint; the other from congestion. These are what are 
known as basic causes. They must exist before germs can attack 
the body. No germs will start sickness until they find a con¬ 
gested surface to light upon, and to start their rapid growth 
into what often are fatal maladies. Remove congestion and you 
remove diseases. Remove any form of congestion and you will 
never have any germs alive in your system, for they cannot live 
except on congested membranes when they invade the human 
body. This process cures all maladies, temporary or chronic, 
that are not the result of blood taint; and it holds in check 
almost all the maladies that arise from blood taint. 

“0” says that the study of congestion in autopsies is one of 
the most interesting in the effort to ascertain the cause of such 
a common malady as the grippe, which often runs into fatal 
pneumonia, and of the influenza, sore throat and common colds. 
The steps are as follows: 

1. There is stomach congestion; it may be intensified by some 
recent abuse, as of eating things that are not food; then the 
surface of the stomach takes on an angry color; this color creeps 
along upward and downward, hurting the liver and organs be¬ 
low ; and in its upward course it involves not only the food pas¬ 
sage, but produces a very angry color in the throat where sore¬ 
ness follows; and this soreness travels all along the bronchial 
passages into the lungs; and still upward to the membranes of 
the brain, and headaches may follow, or the brain will take on a 
dizzy feeling as if it were floating. 

All the time this congestion, which could not start anywhere 
except in the stomach, is traveling its course, and there are sev¬ 
eral kinds of germs in the air waiting for the prospect of a 
feast; and these are: 

1. La Grippe. 

2. Common Cold. 

3. Influenza. 

4. Pneumonia; three well known kinds are waiting. 

5. Diphtheria. 

6. Meningitis. 

7. Common sore throat; and others. 


Nature’s Doctors 


21 


If there is no congestion anywhere, the germs are inhaled into 
the lungs and there are destroyed; having no visible means of 
support, and being unable to secure a livelihood, they succumb, 
lamenting the fate that deprived them of the congestion which is 
the soil on which they feed and thrive. 

Some of the germs get into the food and enter the stomach, 
where they help furnish sustenance for the body, just as big 
fish eat small live fish. This is the plan of nature, as a great 
expert on health said: either the germs will eat you or you must 
eat them. 

As in thousands of autopsies there has never been a single 
instance in which congestion was not present, it is now agreed 
by all doctors that every man, woman and child is the victim of 
this condition in greater or less degree. All persons have con¬ 
gestion of the stomach. If it is in mild form only, it does not 
spread far, and may not for years cause a cold or the grippe, or 
other trouble. But it makes the body READY for the germs, 
and sickness may fall on one without notice. 

Congestion not only invites germs unexpectedly, but gener¬ 
ates fatal conditions and poisons. The heart stops with a sud¬ 
denness that is alarming under its attack. A man who said he 
never felt better in his life, and who did not subject himself to 
any undue strain, fell dead in the middle of the forenoon, having 
no warning of the coming attack. Autopsy showed a very badly 
congested stomach as the only cause. Many a man is seemingly 
in perfect health to-day, and his summons comes in a flash. 
Many a woman is down without being warned by approaching 
symptoms. In all cases the cause that is known as the basic one 
is congestion of the stomach. 

Of thousands of cases of colitis and colonitis, or inflammation 
of the terminal of the alimentary canal, the only method of cure 
was to reduce the congestion; as the latter trouble was over¬ 
come in the stomach, the long line of congestion that had reached 
the whole length of the canal, was called in, or reduced in length 
until it soon left the terminal, and the conditions there were 
healed. On the other end of the line where chronic catarrh of the 
throat and nose persisted, and could not be cured by douches 
and o^ier illogical methods, the Ralston system began by re¬ 
ducing the congested stomach’s irritation, something that medi¬ 
cal men, in many cases, never thought of; as the congested 


22 Complete Life Building 

stomach began to heal, the far end of the congested line which 
was at the nose and throat began to improve; this calling in of 
the congestion continued until it had receded at the upper end, 
and no more catarrh existed there, nor at the throat after a 
while; it all disappeared. Why? Because you cannot have 
catarrh unless you have a congested membrane. 

Can congestion be cured? Yes. 

Always? Yes. 

Is it a permanent cure? As long as you stop abusing the 
stomach. 

How can one tell if there is congestion? By the simple fact 
that there is irritation of the nerves, unrest of the brain and life 
in the body, and feeling of pain in the stomach if you drink a 
glass of hot water. That will find it if the stomach is empty. 

But there is another way. 

If you catch cold, whether easily or rarely, that is the first 
step of congestion. With this trouble absent in the stomach, it 
is as impossible to catch cold, as it is to swallow the Washing¬ 
ton Monument. 

Do you mean to say that there is no congestion of any part of 
the body unless it starts in the stomach? Yes. The proofs are 
so many that the subject is beyond discussion. There have been 
thousands of autopsies where the congestion has been confined 
almost wholly to the stomach; but no case where it existed in 
another part of the body and did not in the stomach at the same 
time. 

In the city of Washington, forty thousand persons had the 
grippe in the same week, and in the season ninety percent of 
the population had it; and if there had not been a single case 
of congested stomach, there would not have been a case of 
grippe, or cold, or pneumonia. 

Does it pay to fight disease at its source ? 

What was true of the city mentioned was true of all other 
cities and localities. The grippe leaves a person weak and hurt 
against other maladies later on. Influenza almost always does 
permanent injury to the heart or lungs. Why suffer from them 
unnecessarily? If they are unnecessary, are you not paying a 
fine when you endure them, and subjecting others who care for 
you to the payment of fines ? 

“N” has the final word in the battle against disease and 


Nature’s Doctors 


23 


sickness. He has been anxious to make known the word that 
begins with the letter “N” so that he can maintain his conten¬ 
tion that it is the most important influence in life and health; 
so he now gives the information that the word is “N”ature. In 
his opinion all doctors who achieve the highest success in help¬ 
ing their patients rely as much as possible on Nature. If this 
power is withdrawn there is no hope for the sick. 

He says that congestion is undoubtedly the cause of all illness 
except that which comes from ancestral misdeeds. 

This fact being universally accepted, he says that if the food 
of the human race were the kind that Nature has ordered, con¬ 
gestion would be impossible; and here he is right; and all learned 
investigators agree with him. Congestion has no other origin 
than the use of food contrary to the commands of Nature. 

Here we are getting to the pith of the truth, to the very heart 
of the knowledge of disease and of its remedy. 

It is admitted on all sides that disease cannot be acquired by 
any human being unless it first comes from congestion. 

It is admitted that congestion is the result of foods contrary 
to the commands of Nature. 

This system of Life Building will prove that when we obey 
the commands of Nature, in our food selection, we will forever 
drive away all congestion; most foods now are crimes against 
Nature; then they will be in accord with the plan of Nature. 

When the race adopts the foods of Nature, known in this 
work as the TRUE FOODS, then all congestion will disappear; 
and with it will go every itis malady, curing diseases that are 
apparently incurable, and setting free the people who have been 
in bondage all these years and all these centuries to the mistakes 
and errors of ignorance. 

“N” then seems to have sustained his contention; and it is 
probable that Nature must be accorded the first place in any 
system of cure. Here it is the climax of all knowledge and of 
all helpfulness. 

By examining the lists of foods eaten by humanity we see at 
once the cause of congestion; the reason why 999 persons out of 
every 1000 are READY soil for germs of disease, which is the 
same in lesser degree as being READY for the undertaker. 

All persons receive inspiration from the experiences of those 
whose judgment and success entitle them to the highest respect. 


24 


Complete Life Building 


Thomas A. Edison, the world’s greatest inventor, is a man whose 
mind is one of the deepest and keenest on earth; and whose opin¬ 
ions sway millions rightfully. Edison is nearly eighty years old. 
To quote his exact words, “My grandfather, early in his life, be¬ 
came fascinated with the story of the great Venetian, Louis 
Cornaro, who, when he found himself a wreck in middle life, 
reformed his diet, and by keeping it right, managed to live more 
than a hundred years. My grandfather after that ate carefully, 
and lived to be one hundred and four. No disease killed him. 
He was perfectly well up to the time that he died. He 
lost interest in life. The cells of which his body was com¬ 
posed were anxious to get away. So my grandfather told his 
children that he was going to his daughter’s house to die. He 
went to her house; undressed; went to bed; and died. There 
was nothing the matter with him. He was simply tired of life. 
And my father died the same way. They had found that the 
secret of long life and perfect health lay in right eating. As for 
me, I eat only because I want to live. As a result, my body is 
not poisoned with decaying, surplus food. My arteries are as 
soft as a child’s.” 

The foregoing statement is taken from a published account of 
his family written by himself. Later on in this work we shall 
discuss the same principles. 

But what has been said shows conclusively that the only road 
to health is that prescribed by Nature; which, summed up, is 
this: stop abusing the body by transgressions of the laws of Na¬ 
ture ; heal the injured parts; and keep them perfect in all the 
years to come; then there will be found the true enjoyment of 
living. 



Nature’s Doctors 


25 


THE GREAT RALSTON DISCOVERIES 

Because we have never advertised, but have worked out our 
problems in silence, we have never been given the credit for the 
achievements that have marked the progress of our course 
through the fifty years of our existence. 

In this, the COMPLETE WORK of the Club, it is right 
that we should refer to some of the leading discoveries that have 
been made through our efforts. With Regents at our command 
by the thousands, each Regent controlling a large following, it 
is not difficult to put in motion any great test that we choose to 
make. Theories have their value, and are often sure of be¬ 
lievers, if they seem to be founded in reason; but facts are of 
greater importance for they tell the truth. 

By making tests in all parts of the civilized world, not among 
a few score of people, but by the aid of hundreds of thousands 
of men and women, and continuing those tests until uniform 
proofs have been secured, it is possible to reach the goal of all 
true investigation,—FACTS. 

To show the value of the new knowledge attained we will men¬ 
tion some of our leading discoveries: 

1. It was the Ralston Health Club that discovered that nine¬ 
teen cases out of every twenty of rheumatism can be cured by 
the omission of certain kinds of food. 

2. It was the Ralston Health Club that discovered that nearly 
every case of diabetes was due to liver poisons found in drinking 
water that had come from surface drainage, as in rivers, lakes, 
ponds and similar sources; and that a cure came not from diet¬ 
ing but from using other kinds of water. 

3. It was the Ralston Health Club that discovered that asthma 
originated from congestion of the stomach, and could be cured 
by removing this cause. 

4. It was the Ralston Health Club that discovered that the 
so-called incurable hay fever and kindred maladies, were due to 
lack of calcium chloride in the blood; and universal cures are 
now in progress by the use of foods that contain these needed 
elements. 

5. It was the Ralston Health Club that discovered that 
anemia, the forerunner of tuberculosis, was due to an unbal¬ 
anced diet; that is, foods no matter how abundant and whole- 


26 


Complete Life Building 

some that contain only a part of the daily needs of the body; 
and making clear the difference between plenty to eat with cer¬ 
tain elements lacking, and less to eat with all elements present. 

6. It was the Ralston Health Club that discovered that the 
human hair could not grow from food that contained none of 
the elements that are required to make hair. This kind of test 
was so satisfactory that we will show how it was conducted. In 
thousands of cases where the hair was falling out, it was learned 
that the food eaten daily contained almost none of the elements 
that are needed to make hair grow; but when a complete food 
was eaten daily, the hair in every instance stopped its losses and 
began to grow. The same law holds true in raising wheat or 
anything else. If you plant wheat in land from which all wheat¬ 
making elements have been exhausted, you will not get a crop; 
but if in the same land you put soil elements that feed wheat, 
you will have success. Millions of people to-day are shampoo¬ 
ing their scalp and cleaning it uselessly, doing it more harm 
than good, and yet are losing their hair; while other millions are 
applying endless varieties of restoratives without results, when 
the only thing needed besides normal cleanliness is a daily diet 
that is completely balanced, containing among all other essen¬ 
tials the food elements that grow hair. 

7. It was the Ralston Health Club that discovered that men¬ 
tal weakness in children, and feeble-mindedness in old age were 
due to an unbalanced diet in which the elements that sustain 
mental vigor were lacking; that such a diet will rob the heart of 
its energy, produce shattered nerves and lessen the vitality of 
every faculty; for all these parts must be fed with life-sustain¬ 
ing foods in order to do their work. 

8. It was the Ralston Health Club that discovered that cancer, 
while based on blood taint inherited or acquired, was excited into 
growth by depriving the blood of its power to build true tissue; 
that cancer is a false tissue growth into which the taint men¬ 
tioned is drawn; and that the inability of the blood to build true 
tissue is due to a poison in the air entering the lungs which 
cripples the blood by failing to purify it as it enters the heart; 
and that this air-poison is caused by tobacco smoke which is in¬ 
haled; just as rubbing tobacco on a fresh scratch or raw part 
of the body has caused cancer to develop at such places. 

9. It was the Ralston Health Club that discovered that the 


Nature’s Doctors 


27 


ripening of the body in old age is due to the dregs left in food 
and liquids in cooking, whereby the distillation is boiled away 
and the refuse remains in the food and liquids; that the reversal 
of this process always results in preserving the body against the 
tendency to ripen and become decrepit. 

10. It was the Ralston Health Club that discovered that the 
desire for stimulants was the crying out of the tortured nerves 
for something to satisfy their cravings; that this torture was in 
every instance the result of food-poisons; and when these poisons 
were no longer present, it was impossible to induce people to use 
stimulants of any kind. Thousands of cases of alcoholism have 
been cured permanently by this simple method. What is prob¬ 
ably the most important section of this book is devoted to a de¬ 
scription of food poisons that are in daily use; and that section 
should be read and re-read many times, for it lays the founda¬ 
tion of the battle for perfect health. 

11. It was the Ralston Health Club that discovered that the 
circulation of the blood depends on the stimulating power given 
the heart by the upper part of the spinal column, and that this 
power is increased by the action of stretching that part of the 
spinal column in an effort to raise the top of the head an inch 
higher than it is usually carried. Nor is there any substitute for 
this action. In thousands of experiments made by people who 
suffer from cold extremities, cold hands and feet, life and 
warmth have been brought to them by this seemingly simple 
action. But when combined with deep breathing of pure out¬ 
door air, the result is a clear complexion, natural color to the 
face, brighter eyes and better vision. The explanation is as easy 
as the action. By tracing back the nerves whose flow of vitality 
feeds the heart, we find these nerves leading to the upper por¬ 
tion of the spinal column. So do the nerves that control breath¬ 
ing. So do the nerves that control digestion. It is all wonderful. 

12. It was the Ralston Health Club that discovered through 
its fifty years of tests and experiments that disease is the result 
of constant contact with poisons; and that if these poisons can 
be controlled no human being will ever die of disease: 

That pure water is essential to health, but that most water 
is a poison, while pure water is the first and most important 
body builder. 

That all the so-called foods are of two classes; unwholesome and 


28 


Complete Life Building 

wholesome; that the first class is always a poison, and the whole¬ 
some foods if deprived of their complete parts become a poison, 
or if improperly cooked are likewise a poison. 

That when air has been inhaled and has done its work and has 
been exhaled it is a poison and fatal to life no matter how pure 
it was when it entered the body, showing that a fatal poison is be¬ 
ing removed from contact with the body, 

That when water has been taken in the body and has done its 
work and is on its way out, it is a poison fatal to life, whether 
driven out by the kidneys or through the skin or lungs, showing 
that a fatal poison is being removed from contact with the body. 

That when food of the most wholesome kind and perfectly 
cooked has entered the body and has done its work, and either 
remains in the body as in constipation, or is on its way out, it is 
a poison fatal to life, showing that the body is a container of 
this danger or else is in constant contact with it; and Nature, 
the wise mother of us all, gives to this spent food a stench that 
compels all decent people to put it beyond the reach of the nos¬ 
trils in order that it may be beyond the reach of the body. Even 
the daintiest, purest, most delicate morsels of food, after diges¬ 
tion, become a horrible filth. How ? Why ? For what purpose ? 

Humanity lives in constant contact with poisons of every 
character. 

Our Club has proved that if these poisons can be controlled, 
the man or woman who controls them cannot die of disease, for 
there is no disease that can attack that man or that woman.' 

CONGESTION comes from wrong foods, or false foods as 
they are called. 

Poisons come from any foods that are not properly cooked ; 
good or bad; and from allowing them, after they have done their 
work, to remain in the body. Now we see the union of the first 
and last words of the Round Table of 1876: Regime, or Regular¬ 
ity, to begin with; and Nature to stay with. By Regime It be¬ 
comes impossible to lock up poisons in the body. 

More than this and best of all, when the TRUE FOOD'S are 
selected, the work required of Regime is very materially les¬ 
sened. In nine cases out of every ten, the TRUE FOODS will 
of themselves take care of the poisons and keep them from 
accumulating. 



SECOND SECTION 


DISEASE AND DEATH AND 
THE RALSTON TREATMENT 



OST PERSONS who read this book will be unable to 
undertake the building of a new body, on account of 
organic troubles or other chronic conditions that 
have already secured a hold on them. When there 
is trouble in any one department of life, there 
should be concentrated attention as the first step to be taken. 
When such attention can be accompanied by the process of 
building the body anew, or when the latter step can be used as 
the means of cure, it will help matters very much to combine 
these measures with the suggestions that are now to be given. 

Doctors say that ninety-five men and women in every hun¬ 
dred have some organic or chronic disease, either developed, or 
in process of developing. 

In seventy percent of people the liver is hardening. 

The germs of tuberculosis are in the lungs of eighty-five per¬ 
cent of all men and women. 

Eighty persons in every hundred have weak or erratic heart 
action. 

Painless, or blind, inflammation of the stomach, which is a 
source of the gravest danger, is present in ninety-nine percent 
of all persons; only one in a hundred being free from it. 

Sixty percent of the people are candidates for appendicitis, 
requiring only acute conditions to develop the disease without 
warning. 





















30 


Complete Life Building 

A high official of the United States Government recently made 
the following statement: “The medical examination required 
of the men drafted in the war has disclosed the surprising unfit¬ 
ness of the nation as a whole. If the strict standards of health 
were adhered to, it would be the hardest kind of a task to muster 
in even one division. It is to be hoped that hereafter the people 
will seek better health, if not for the purposes of war, at least 
to enable them to enjoy life and its blessings.’ ’ 

As paralysis, heart failure, neurasthenia, stomach troubles and 
kidney diseases are almost sure to follow the use of pills, drugs 
and medicines, it is important that we obtain, if possible, some 
course of natural treatment that shall remove the dangers of 
disease without inviting other and more serious consequences. 

To start with let us adhere to the basic rule which says: 

“Let Nature Take Its Course if you wish a Safe and Perma- 
nant Cure.” 

THE BATTLE OF LIFE—PAST AND PRESENT 

1. Man did not appear on this earth first, and his food after¬ 
wards. If he had, he would have starved to death on the day 
of his birth. 

2. His food was waiting for him when he arrived. This could 
not be an accident of nature; it was the result of deliberation 
and design by some controlling power. Can you guess what ? 

3. Strange to say, his food for the main part was wheat. And 
strange to say, wheat was the only food that grew on earth that 
contained all the elements needed to wholly sustain and nourish 
the human body. 

4. Before man came, some controlling power had produced the 
one animal kind that furnishes the first food of life: milk. Had 
the cow followed instead of preceded man, he could not have 
raised his young after its mother had done her part; for no race 
has ever been reared without milk, and its products, cream and 
butter, all essential to the growth of the body. 

5. Ere man came, some controlling power had caused the 
grape to grow; the fruit that best furnishes iron and vital ele¬ 
ments needed by the body. 

6. There are parts of the world where wheat is not found, but 
in its place a number of foods combined serve to make a substi- 


Nature’s Doctors 


31 


tute; but it is a peculiar fact that nowhere on earth does human¬ 
ity give promise of a high civilization except in the wheat pro¬ 
ducing countries. This grain is the whole man: brain, nerves, 
muscles, blood and organic life; all at their best. 

7. There is no nation with a history that does not recite in its 
pages from the earliest dawn of its existence the story of bread 
making, and the story of its vineyard; and we read of the great 
promise to the people who were forty years in the wilderness 
seeking the promised land that was flowing with milk and honey. 

8. Milk and bread build the body and its brain; but honey 
and cane sugar furnish the energy that accomplishes things in 
life: physical, nervous and mental power. These blessings also 
awaited the arrival of man. 

9. It is not difficult to look back to the earliest period of 
human life; to that vague era of pre-historie man, or what our 
humorists choose to call the 11 cave man.” He was ignorant be¬ 
cause he was inexperienced. He did not know anything about 
wheat, or other things that had been provided as food; so he 
proceeded to eat his own kind of life; and he ate it raw. His 
teeth were tusks; his fingers were claws; and he devoured ani¬ 
mals much as dogs do to-day, gnawing the bones clear to the 
marrow, and for the marrow, which was a delicate morsel for 
him. 

10. After his evening meal, he turned over to his wife and 
children such portions as his bulky stomach could not hold; and 
as they gnawed the bones and tore the flesh with their tusks and 
claws, he sat on a slope of ground facing the western sky and 
saw the sun slowly sink to rest, while the gentle southern 
zephyrs fanned his heated brow, and lulled him into a contem¬ 
plative mood that looked into the far distant future. He said to 
himself: “I am the climax of creation; the last word in mental 
and physical supremacy. Ages may follow; generations may 
come after me; but never in all the vast passing of time shall 
there come on earth so noble a being as myself.” 

11. But how far wrong was he in his reasoning? He was 
ignorant of the uses of wheat, of other civilizing foods, and of 
the manner of living in many other respects. The ancient pre¬ 
historic being had no dentists; we have several hundred thou¬ 
sand. He had no doctors; we have two millions. He had no hos¬ 
pitals ; we have them everywhere. He had no surgeons inviting 


32 


Complete Life Building 

him to come in and be cnt open; we have six hundred thousand. 
He had no pill boxes; to-day a trainload, carrying fifty freight 
cars, is required to haul to suffering humanity each twenty-four 
hours, the pills with which they poison their blood. He had no 
drugs, no medicines, no patent remedies; it takes daily five hun¬ 
dred freight cars to transport to our fellow beings these other 
poisons they demand. 

12. He had no maladies except one; which was the stomach- 
ache. We have so many maladies that a great library of thou¬ 
sands of books is required to name and describe them. In fact 
it takes twenty thousand words apart from those in common use 
to convey the meaning of the medical parlance. If you were to 
stand on the roof of the tallest building in any large city, and 
send a projectile at random a hundred feet or a hundred yards, 
or a mile or several miles, no matter in what direction, the 
chances are that your projectile would land on or in the vicinity 
of a drug store; and a second one so hurled might drop on the 
front door steps of a doctor’s office. 

13. Millions of dollars are spent every year in the name of 
modern medical science for the sole purpose of lessening human 
suffering. While more people to-day reach the age of ninety 
than ever before in known history, the average age of the others 
has decreased instead of having lengthened, as is claimed. The 
Ralston Club in the past fifty years has done most of the work 
in extending the span of life, and in reducing premature death; 
and had its influence not been at work, the average age would 
have been much lower than it now is. 

14. It is true that many maladies take a lower toll of life than 
ever before; but, on the other hand, the following diseases are 
on the increase, and have been steadily growing into a greater 
menace for several generations: 

Insanity. 

Paresis. 

Cancer. 

Kidney diseases. 

Heart failure. 

Stomach troubles. 

Pneumonia. 

Neuritis. 

Nervous Prostration. 


Nature’s Doctors 


33 


Acute Indigestion. 

Apoplexy. 

Appendicitis. 

Influenza or grippe. 

Paralysis. 

Hay Fever. 

Rheumatism. 

15. Of these sixteen diseases, all except paresis, cancer and 
most forms of insanity can be traced directly to the kinds of 
food eaten by humanity. Nervous prostration is due to the 
noise and distractions of city life especially during the hours of 
supposed sleep at night, which is only a semi-sleep, during which 
the repair of the nerves is impossible. Cancer is now known to 
be derived from two sources; and these generally act together. 
Eighty percent of cancer comes from inherited syphilitic blood 
taint; twenty percent of cancer originates from the inhalation 
of tobacco smoke into the lungs, or from contact with tobacco 
in some form, with the probability that the same blood taint has 
come down from a past generation. Paresis of the brain follows 
the same taint when combined with the influence of tobacco. 
Insanity is generally inherited, or due to body poisons or con¬ 
gestion. 

16. The other twelve diseases are all dtle and easily traceable 
to the kinds of food eaten; and they, with many more, consti¬ 
tute the basis of this present work. You will probably die of 
one of the following maladies; that is, assuming that you are 
free from the class just mentioned above: 

Apoplexy, due to blood pressure. 

Kidney disease, due to excessive eating of foods that the kid¬ 
neys cannot pass. 

Paralysis, due to tea drinking, or the use of medicines that 
deaden the nerves. 

Pneumonia. 

These are probabilities only. But as the vast majority of 
people who are not in the cancer class are dying of one of these 
four diseases, the law of chances would indicate that here you 
would find your fate if you do not take steps to head it off. 

To-day many doctors divide invalids into two classes: 

1. The Cancer Class. 

2. The Congested Class. 


34 


Complete Life Building 

By the Cancer Class is meant those people who inherit tainted 
blood, which if it does not turn in time to cancer, will show it¬ 
self in some form of blood disorder, or a malady that has its 
source in the misdeeds of ancestors, such as epilepsy, loco-motor 
ataxia, paresis and insanity. All these troubles are fully dealt 
with in this volume. 

The other class that suffer from ill health, are the victims of 
Congestion, which has been partly described in preceding pages, 
but which will be very fully discussed later on. 

But there is one malady that seems to be regarded as of re¬ 
cent origin, and that is neuritis; yet it is wholly due to bad ele¬ 
ments that are eaten as food or with food; principally where 
chemicals are employed as preservatives. We live in an age of 
canned goods, and must take the preservatives with the food; 
hence neuritis has its cause; but even then it acts on the body 
through the congestion that it causes. 

We find one malady that is apart from the others in the fact 
that it is not caused by congestion or inherited taint. We have 
referred to it as the city disease, nervous prostration, ’or neuras¬ 
thenia. Yet in treating this trouble for many years, it has been 
found to yield to the cure of congestion; that is, when all con¬ 
gestion has left the membranes, the distraction of city noises 
will have much less effect on the nerves and the brain. 

We like the divisions of diseases that a prominent doctor has 
made very recently, into the following Classes: 

1. Nervous Prostration, being the same as Neurasthenia. 

2. Inherited Taint; including Cancer, active or dormant; 
tumors, ulcers, abscesses, epilepsy, loco-motor ataxia, infantile 
paralysis, paresis and many forms of insanity. All these and 
other blood disorders have their origin in the misdeeds of 
ancestors. 

3. Congestion diseases, which include all those long lists of 
maladies that keep printers busy publishing them, and medical 
schools active in describing them, 

Here is the BATTLE GROUND of LIFE and DEATH. 

In a nutshell of statement, if you escape chronic congestion in 
its intensified form, you will avoid most if not all diseases that 
have their origin in inherited taint. And congestion is con¬ 
trolled by what you eat. You can eat to rid yourself of it; or 
to invite it. 


THIRD SECTION 


HOW LIFE IS BUILT 


E WILL NOW leave the dry studies that are pre¬ 
sented in the preceding pages of this book, and 
come to the simple facts that the most recent dis¬ 
coveries have brought to light. These will prove 
interesting, as well as important. 

The first American medical scientist to win the Nobel prize of 
forty thousand dollars, achieved his triumph because of his dis¬ 
covery of the process of life and death within the human body, 
which process he was able to carry on outside the body in the 
creation, maintenance and deathless renewal of tissue such as 
the human body is built of. 

For many years, and especially in the last five or six years, 
many scientific men have been experimenting along the same 
lines, and the results all tend to one triumph, which is the solv¬ 
ing in part of the great riddle of life and death in the body. 

To-day, in the very year that you are reading this page, life 
and death activities are being carried on in the great institutes 
that the multimillionaires of the world have endowed for the 
purpose. 

The knowledge of things is being revolutionized. 

We stand on the threshold of a new era. 

In entering upon the explanation of the facts which, if applied 
to your own life, would so change you that you would regard 
the result as a miracle performed in an age of miraculous prog- 

35 






















36 


Complete Life Building 

ress, we fear that the subject will, to some extent, seem so deep 
that you will not grasp its meaning. 

But we will proceed without the use of scientific language, 
and with the simplest words, suited to the everyday minds. In 
many of our descriptions we step aside from the usual medical 
terms, and adopt those that are popular instead. If, therefore, 
the same words that occur in official reports are not repeated 
here, you will understand that the change is made so that 
millions of people who have not been educated up to medical 
terms will know just what we mean. 

The most important of recent discoveries is the fact that each 
part of the human body' does its own work in its own way, to a 
large degree independent of every other part. The following 
experiments were conducted in various institutes, and by the 
most advanced of scientific discoverers. 

In each experiment they had two things : 

1. Food in the form of blood that had been built out of the 
fourteen elements under the GREAT LAW OF LAWS which 
we have described in the following Section of this book. 

2. Some part of a vital organ, or separate portion of the body. 

When we say that food was given to such part, we refer 

always to blood containing the fourteen elements. On the same 
principle a mother who is nursing a child may give to the child 
her own blood in the form of milk; and milk is one step in the 
making of blood; and such milk may be the product of perfect 
food selection as already described. The child so fed would be 
immune against every form of sickness and distress, as has been 
proved in thousands of cases. 


FIRST EXPERIMENT. u Beginning of Life” 

Life begins in a single cell. 

By feeding this cell at the temperature of the human body, 
it is made to absorb the food offered it, and to grow. Its growth 
takes place by wrapping itself about a tiny portion of the food, 
absorbing it, and then splitting itself into halves; each half be¬ 
ing a new cell. Each one of these new cells proceeds in the 
same way; one cell becomes two; two become four; four become 
eight; eight become sixteen; and so on until in about twenty 
such generations there will be a million cells grown from one. 


Nature’s Doctors 


37 


All these generations cannot be born in one minute. It is in this 
way that every part of the human body is being built every 
second of time. It is also in this way that disease takes rapid 
possession of the body, for most diseases spring from germ cells. 

SECOND EXPERIMENT. “Making Bones” 

Two pieces of a bone taken from an animal that had recently 
died, were made the subject of tests in growth. 

The first piece was laid away in cold storage where it would 
not decay; and there it was kept for months. 

The second piece was placed at once on the slide of a micro¬ 
scope and was fed with fresh blood, while the warmth of the 
human body, nearly one hundred degrees, was maintained stead¬ 
ily. It was a piece of a live bone. 

Instead of absorbing from the blood all the contents of the 
latter, it chose such parts as were required to make bone; and 
nothing else. 

Live bone is composed of live cells; the interior is different 
from the shell or surface of the bone; but the process of selection 
went on to suit the demands of each part. 

The food on which the bone fed was blood taken from a man 
who himself had been fed on all the fourteen elements required 
to make perfect blood. As long as sudh food was given to the 
bone it continued the work of creating bone cells by which it 
added to itself. 

Blood taken from another man whose food had been perfect 
except that it lacked the elements that make bone, was fed to 
this piece of bone; and it refused to take any part of it; it simply 
stopped growing, and would soon have died had not the former 
food been given it. 

There are millions of children suffering from rickets, or from 
curvature of the spine, or from bow-legs or other form of weak 
or soft bones, or similar deficiencies, that might be easily cured, 
as many thousands have been cured, by feeding them with a 
perfect food under the GREAT LAW OF LAWS. 

In continuing this experiment with the piece of fresh bone, 
after the perfect food had been again given it and it had again 
begun to grow vigorously, the following articles were added in 
turn to the perfect blood: Lard in very small proportion; pas- 


38 


Complete Life Building 

try; tomato; fried potato; fresh bread; and vinegar; in every 
instance, when such addition was made, even the smallest frac¬ 
tion of a drop, the bone stopped growing and would have suf¬ 
fered death. 

The final part of this experiment consisted in breathing a very 
small bit of tobacco smoke upon the bone: it not only stopped 
growing, but actually died; nothing that could be done had the 
power to revive it. 

The second part of the same experiment was made with the 
mate to this piece of bone; the piece that was laid away in cold 
storage where it would not decay. It remained there for six 
months. When taken out and brought at once to the tempera¬ 
ture of the body, and given pure food as in the case of the piece 
just described, it showed the same signs of life as did the fresh 
piece; it grew as well, thrived and added to itself, just the 
same; and suffered from the setbacks and final death just as 
did its mate. The main value in this second part of the experi¬ 
ment is to establish the fact that the bone, as long as it does not 
begin to decay, has locked up in its cells the life-building power 
that is possessed in the living man or woman. Given the food 
that contains the bone-making elements, it will go on making 
bone material, whether in a living body, or outside of it. 

The things in food that will cause a setback to the piece of 
bone will, it has been proved, do the same injury in life itself; 
hence we find one of the prevailing causes of disease: the lack 
of all the fourteen elements in the food we eat. 

If a man is shot through the heart, the blood will stop circu¬ 
lating, and its contents cannot then be carried to the various 
parts of the body; but his bones are all alive, and will remain 
alive until they die of starvation. If the food could be carried 
to them, every bone in his body would not only live, but would 
keep on growing as fast as they required new growth to renew 
them; and this process would continue until the decay that was 
being set up in the other parts of the body had overwhelmed 
them. 

It has been proved that the bones will, if supplied with food, 
live on and on indefinitely, unless clogged by foreign material, 
which means by matter contained in the blood that is not one of 
the fourteen elements. The ripening and hardening of the bones 


Nature’s Doctors 


39 


which attend old age, and indeed mark it, are due to the pres¬ 
ence of unnecessary material in the food. 

THIRD EXPERIMENT. "Making Skin” 

Two pieces of live skin were obtained. One was put in cold 
storage for six months. 

The other was placed upon the slide of the microscope as soon 
as it was taken from the body. 

Like bone, skin is made up of countless cells, like the cells of 
vegetation. Plant life and animal life have the same basis or 
beginning in cells. 

The skin, while made of such cells, requires the most intricate 
weaving to produce its several layers, its pores, its pumping en¬ 
gines which enable- it to carry on perspiration, and its shell or 
cuticle for final protection at the surface: a most wonderful 
elaboration of growth. But each skin-cell is charged with the 
impulse to produce all these results. 

Bone is made of some elements that must be in the blood and 
must come from the food we eat; skin is made of other elements, 
unlike those that make bone, but just as necessary. Thus the ele¬ 
ments in food that will make bones will not make skin; and the 
elements that make skin will not make bone. 

When this piece of live- skin was fed to the food that sustained 
it, it began to make new cells; but they were skin-cells; not bone 
cells. The piece of skin had selected exactly what elements it 
needed, and had left the rest, some of them possibly for making 
bones. What was most extraordinary, the food selected was 
woven at once by the skin into additional skin; and so it grew. 

This growing piece of skin was checked and setback when 
lard, tomato, fried food, pastry, fresh bread, vinegar or any 
similar non-food material was added; and it died at once when 
the slightest breath of tobacco fumes was exhaled over it. 

The second half of this experiment was made with the mate 
to this piece of skin, the part that had been placed for six months 
in cold storage to keep it from decay. It was given warmth and 
food, and grew in the same manner as did its mate; and was 
set back by non-food material, and killed by tobacco smoke. 

If a man is shot through the heart, the blood will stop circu- 


40 


Complete Life Building 

lating, and its contents will not be carried to the various parts 
of the body, but his bones are all alive and his skin is all alive; 
and they will remain alive until they die of starvation. If food 
and warmth could be conveyed to them they would not only 
live, but would continue to grow indefinitely as long as demand 
could be made upon them for growth. 

There are two causes of skin diseases: 

1. The lack of food elements required to build the skin, is the 
first cause and a common one; for it means that foreign material 
is sure to be present which will lead to defects of many kinds. 

2. But the most common cause of skin troubles is the presence 
in the food of elements not required to build any part of the 
body. They seek to find lodgment in the channels of escape, 
which are the pores, and here they set up irritations such as 
boils, abscesses, carbuncles, hives, and countless skin sores and 
maladies; depending on the kind of foreign material that is 
added to the food from day to day. An excess of a needed ele¬ 
ment will also cause troubles in this class; as when pork fat is 
eaten, and boils follow; the carbon in pork fat is needed, but 
can be better secured in cream or butter, which will not produce 
boils. 

It has been amply proved that the use of only the proper ele¬ 
ments and in the proper proportion, will lead to the making of a 
perfect skin, but also to the making of a perfect COM¬ 
PLEXION. 

The woman of bad complexion is daily putting into the stom¬ 
ach material in food or drink, as tea and coffee under the latter 
head, that poison the skin-making cells and lead to imperfect 
structure. For nearly fifty years we have proved, as a fact and 
never as a mere theory, that the finest complexions can be ob¬ 
tained from perfect food selection under the GREAT LAW OF 
LAWS. 

FOURTH EXPERIMENT. “Scalp and Hair Growth” 

Since the last edition of this work was published, a number of 
notable experiments have been made with pieces of scalp. 

Two pieces were taken, as in the case of the bones and skin. 

One piece was put in cold storage; the other was at once used, 
and was given warmth and food containing the elements that 


Nature’s Doctors 


41 


produce scalp and hair. When such food was continued the 
cells of the scalp not only produced more cells of its kind but 
also cells of hair, which grew rapidly. 

When food was given it from a man whose diet was devoid 
of the needed hair-making elements, the scalp went on growing, 
but produced only scalp which was BALD. The hair that had 
grown became weak in the course of time, and fell out. On 
restoring food that contained the hair-making material, the bald 
scalp began, after a length of time, to produce hair. 

It is needless to say that the non-foods referred to under the 
Second and Third Experiments, led to similar disasters in this 
case. 

There are many instances among people who live on the 
plainer foods which invariably contain hair-making material in 
abundance, who have died, and whose bodies have been exhumed 
months and years after, and a long growth of hair has been 
found upon them. The body of one woman is on exhibition 
showing ten feet of hair length much of which was grown after 
death; and men with long beards have likewise been taken from 
their graves who died beardless. 

The important fact is that the various parts of the body do 
not die until such parts are denied food material and warmth 
needed to maintain growth. As hair does not require warmth 
in order fo grow, it goes on adding to its length in the cold 
ground after death, and until the last available material is be¬ 
yond its reach. Another wonderful fact is that, in the grave, 
the flesh and skin are taken possession of by bacteria of decay, 
that undoubtedly pass and repass many times throughout the 
whole mass, and thus convey to the scalp the hair-making mate¬ 
rial on which the hair grows. On no other theory can we ac¬ 
count for the well-proved fact that the hair does in fact grow 
after death. 

Based on this experiment, many persons have been taking ad¬ 
vantage of the new knowledge by adopting a perfect food selec¬ 
tion consisting of the fourteen elements called for under the 
GREAT LAW OF LAWS, lacking none and adding none not 
needed; with the result that all parts of the body are being built 
in perfection. 

This is the new method of living. 


42 Complete Life Building 

FIFTH EXPERIMENT. “Stomach, Kidneys, Liver, Lungs fy 

On each of four different slides, was placed a part of some 
organ; on one, a piece of stomach; on another, a piece of kid¬ 
ney ; on a third, a piece of liver; on the fourth a piece of lung 
mass. 

The same food was given to all of them; that is, each had a 
portion of blood from the same person taken at the same time, 
so there, could be no difference in the food. 

The piece of stomach selected for its growth such parts of the 
food as were required by it, and it proceeded to build more of 
its kind. 

The kidney built only kidney material, which was unlike the 
others, showing that it made its selection from the food supplied, 
and that there must be contained in each cell an intelligence 
created to do this choosing. 

The piece of liver selected its own kind, and built nothing 
but liver. 

The lungs kept within their own demands. 

# this most wonderful and amazing experiment, scien¬ 

tists would have asserted that the tissue of any organ would 
have built merely a general mass of tissue, having no separate 
character; merely a collection of cells. It was believed that out¬ 
side the living body the tissue would have lost its individual 
nature. But it was remembered that the rose bush will select 
from the earth the material to make roses; and from the same 
earth the onion will select material to make the onion; the apple 
tree the material to make the apple; and so on, each kind cling¬ 
ing to its own mission. 

To see tissue wholly separated from its place in a living or¬ 
ganism, lying on a slide with no connection with any form of 
life except itself,—to see such tissue working diligently to make 
more of its special kind under these circumstances was indeed 
amazing. 


SIXTH EXPERIMENT. “Making Brains” 

The brain is a great nervous center. 

In the act of thinking it throbs, and with each thought there 
is a fluid that rushes over its surface. This fact has been known 
for many years. 


Nature’s Doctors 


43 


Each brain section is an engine that, like the heart, carries 
on its action when in use, at which time it vibrates and throbs. 

For fifty years scientific writers on diet, as well as physicians, 
have discussed the question of brain foods, and it has been 
thought by some that foods containing phosphorus in combina¬ 
tion should be eaten. The reason for this supposition rests in 
the fact that has been well proved that brain workers show 
great waste of this element after great mental strain. Thus on 
Mondays, after important sermons on the Sundays preceding, 
preachers do in fact eliminate unusual quantities of this ele¬ 
ment. So tests have shown thqt any great mental effort has 
been followed by the same waste of phosphorus, whether in stu¬ 
dents, lawyers after trials, or any class of mental workers. 
Coupled with this well-known fact, was the other fact that these 
men who used the. brain so severely, craved certain kinds of 
food, such as salmon, trout, and meats rich in the element. 
Putting these two facts- together, it was assumed that brain 
foods must contain phosphorus; and the result was that there 
was offered for sale what were known as “brain foods/’ 

The next step was to make the claim that the brain was given 
life and power in unusual degree by such a diet. 

All these questions may be considered settled in the light of 
the following experiment. 

A section of brain was* placed on the slide and fed with 
warmth and blood containing all fourteen elements required 
under the GREAT LAW OF LAWS. 

For a while it did nothing. It was supposed that it had got 
past the stage of building more of its own tissue. After wait¬ 
ing patiently, it showed signs of life. Soon it absorbed a very 
small part of the food offered it. It made cell after cell from 
this food, and it was found that the tissue thus built was. exactly 
like its own,—brain fibre. In the course of time it made what 
was a large part, as compared with the piece that was first at 
work; and the newly made part joined in the work of building 
brain tissue. 

Several pieces of brain had been put away in cold storage; 
all were in time used; some after many months of inactivity. 
Under the GREAT LAW OF LAWS, there are fourteen ele¬ 
ments required by the human body as food. In a number of 
tests, the following results were attained: 


44 


Complete Life Building 

When blood was used as food for the piece of brain, that 
had one element lacking, no matter what, the brain refused to 
build tissue. 

The increase of phosphorus in food combination seemed to 
paralyze the piece that was building brain tissue; the lack of 
it stopped the building. 

The presence of calcium-chloride gave the building process the 
greatest energy. The lack of it caused paralysis. 

The final conclusion reached was that the brain is built of all 
the fourteen elements; and this seems to be the only part of the 
body that requires all fourteen. Now arises* the question, if 
there are special elements needed to make skin, and others to 
make the nails and hair, and others to make the organs, why 
should all these elements be needed for the brain tissue ? The 
answer seems to be this: The brain isr the collective sum of all 
the body and all its parts; it is the great nerve center ; it surely 
controls the distribution of the food elements throughout the 
whole body. We know that, without the brain, digestion and 
circulation are impossible; and we know that each food element, 
in order to do its part, must reach its zone of usefulness through 
the processes of digestion and circulation. 

Therefore there is but one perfect brain food: 

It is the complete food that is made up of the fourteen ele¬ 
ments required to build a perfect body under the GREAT LAW 
OF LAWS. 

It is now a proved fact that insanity may be caused by a lack 
of any one of these fourteen elements; and in some cases by 
using more than the fourteen in food selection. 

In concluding our discussion of this experiment, we will say 
that no evidence was obtained showing the process of thought 
in the small section used; but in previous years, many experi¬ 
ments had been made by opening the skull and watching the 
action of the brain during all forms of mental activity, and 
excitement. A gray fluid flows over the convolutions, and be¬ 
comes excessive when the thought is- intense or over-active. Thus 
fluid is taken from the blood in its circulation. Persons who 
are mentally excited show a decided increase in the circulation 
and heart-beats. Dull minds have as a rule a very sluggish 
circulation. 

The brain of man acts just like the brain of the animal 


Nature’s Doctors 


45 


Except for the vast advance in development of this organ, 
which is shown by the deeper and more intricate convolutions, 
there is not the slightest difference between the brain of man 
and of the brute or beast. And the action of thought is the 
same in man and in the animal. 

In the brain of man there is not the least indication of the 
presence of the MIND. We must look elsewhere for this sub¬ 
lime gift,—the MIND. 

As far as man is concerned, his brain is merely a far ad¬ 
vanced and vastly improved organ of thought made and em¬ 
ployed exactly like the brain of the animal. 

SEVENTH EXPERIMENT. “Making the Heart Beat” 

If a man is shot through the brain, the injury to the nervous 
center will cause death; which fact shows that the brain and 
its various forms of life control the living organism called the 
human body. But any section of that brain, removed and fed 
with warmth and proper food, will start life anew. 

If a man drowns, nothing has been done to hurt any part of 
the body except to deprive the blood of the oxygen that is 
needed to purify it before it enters the heart for the purpose of 
being circulated, so that it may carry food to all parts of the 
body. The body is fully alive when a man is pronounced dead 
from drowning. Every organ is capable of performing its 
work; skin, stomach, liver, kidneys, heart, brain. Years ago we 
suggested* that the failure to revive a person who was supposed 
to be dead from drowning was due to the fact that the body 
was not given the high degree of heat required to set it going 
again. 

In the various experiments already described, it was clearly 
stated that warmth of nearly one hundred degrees was needed 
to cause a piece of bone or skin, or organ, to begin a new life. 
Where this suggestion has been applied to persons drawn from 
the water, the work of resuscitation has been successful; and it 
is safe to say that several hundred persons are now living be¬ 
cause of this fact. 

Let us follow this simple law of creation: 

Fragments of heart were placed on slides and fed with blood ; 
but not one of them started action. 


46 


Complete Life Building 

Then one of these fragments was given the required degree 
of warmth, which is that of the active human body, or nearly 
one hundred degrees, and it began to build new cells just like 
the heart; while all the other pieces that were not given this 
warmth, remained apparently dead. But these, when made 
warm, all began to build new cells. Here we find why there 
are so many failures in the efforts to revive persons who are 
apparently dead: the one thing lacking is the warmth. 

In the experiment with the pieces of heart, when all had 
sufficient warmth, they not only began to build more heart tis¬ 
sue, but all began to contract and expand , just like whole hearts 
in living bodies. One fragment was smaller than the others, 
and it beat and pulsated regularly, but with greater speed than 
the larger fragments; the former having 120 pulsations to the 
minute, while the others had 92 and one as low as 70 beats. 

Of course the warmth given the parts was only an incident; 
the really essential requirement being the right kind of food. 
This consisted of blood taken from one who had been fed for 
weeks on a perfect food composed only of the fourteen elements. 
When the tiniest bit of some non-food element was added, al¬ 
though in a perfect combination, it stopped the growth at once. 
Thus lard, or tomato, or pastry, or anything fried, or fresh 
bread, would prove injurious, showing that such foods are not 
intended for the human body. 

While the heart pieces were beating, the slightest breath of 
tobacco smoke on the part resulted in the instant stopping of 
the heart pulsation, and the cessation of the growth of new tissue. 

Cancer, which is now acknowledged to be erratic tissue growth 
due to interference with the oxygen in the blood by any air 
poison, was several times set up by the action of tobacco smoke 
on the pulsing pieces of heart tissue in these experiments. The 
fumes were so light as to be thinner than the thinnest vapor and 
were administered from the distance of four feet, and wholly 
free from exhalations from the lungs or other poisons; they 
were mixed with the purest air at full heat; yet the tissue 
curled up and began to be woven in erratic fibres such as are 
found in cancer. 

Recently the claim that tobacco juice and smoke are antiseptic 
has been fully exploded as false; these agencies injure the good 
tissue, and affect the insect life of visible size; but are wholly 


Nature’s Doctors 


47 


useless and powerless over bacteria of disease; yet are destruc¬ 
tive of life cells in healthy growth. In thousands of tests it 
has been shown that tobacco smoke and juice have no effect what¬ 
ever on germs of disease, but kill the healthy cells and tissue 
required to fight disease. This accounts for the common fact 
that smokers are more liable to sickness and epidemics than 
non-smokers; and tobacco chewers invariably have diseased 
livers and bad stomachs. 

The smoker’s throat cancer is a well-known malady; as is the 
tobacco heart. 

The heart is the toughest and most vital organ in the whole 
body. In nine cases out of every ten where examinations have 
been made soon after death, there is life in that organ, and it 
can be set to beating again in the manner stated in these experi¬ 
ments. 

One lesson of vital worth is here taught; the heart beats of 
its own power, independent of any aid from the general body, 
and its energy and vigor are so great that nothing short of 
monstrous abuse can stop it. No sensible person should have a 
weak heart; and only lack of knowledge or judgment can stand 
in the way of a complete cure of heart weakness. 

In the above experiment with the pieces of heart, the pulsa¬ 
tion continued for three days; then the tissue seemed to weary, 
and the smaller fragment dropped in its rate of action to ninety 
heart-beats a minute, while the larger fragment dropped to 
forty. Examination showed that, as the new tissue formed, 
some of the old died and gave out a poison known to doctors as 
toxin. This poison was removed by a special washing, and new 
blood was introduced for food, as the heart-material no doubt 
was about exhausted in the three days of feeding to the tissue- 
growth. Exactly the same conditions take place in the living 
body. Old cells break down and become a source of danger by 
their poison; and the same blood will not always serve as food. 

As soon as the fragments were washed and given new food, 
they again became vigorous; as the doctor in charge at the Insti¬ 
tute said, ‘‘they were pulsating at a furious rate.” While they 
were beating, they were rapidly growing in size, until the two 
fragments came together, whereupon they united and became a 
single organ. The two hearts that had been beating at different 
rates of speed now assumed a modified rate and pulsated as one 


48 


Complete Life Building 

heart. Another specimen of heart-fragment lived for 103 days, 
beating regularly all the time, and was accidentally destroyed, 

Deaths from heart failure, as in acute indigestion which stops 
the action of the heart, and from the poisons of the many non¬ 
foods eaten, should not be taken as final without an effort to set 
the heart going again; a result that has actually been attained 
in the light of new knowledge. The body should be put in a 
bath tub filled full of warm water of 100 degrees temperature, 
and artificial respiration resorted to. Do this before turning the 
body over to the embalmer; when of course it will be too late. 

SUMMARY OF THE EXPERIMENTS 

If a piece of any part of the human body that has been laid 
away in cold storage for months and then given warmth and per¬ 
fect food, will live again, as has been amply proved, then it is 
certain that the same part of the human body in that organism 
when alive and given perfect food will live on indefinitely. And 
what a part will do, the whole body will surely do. 

All that is required is perfect food. 

Therefore the person who knows what is perfect food, and 
who makes use of it in supplying the needs of the body, is to be 
accounted 

100 PERCENT RIGHT. 



FOURTH SECTION 


THE GREAT LAW OF LAWS 
100 PERCENT RIGHT 



HE HUMAN BODY is built of material like any con¬ 
structed thing. There are about ninety well recog- 
JO nized elements in the earth; some are good for mak- 
ing houses that are not good for making the human 
body. But what you intend to build should be made 
of the kind of material that is required to build it. If you wish 
to make a gold ring, you select gold. If it is to be a platinum 
ornament, you select platinum. If you give an order to a con¬ 
tractor to erect for you a house of brick, you would expect him 
to use brick. 

Long before man ever knew there were elements in nature, the 
human body was built by the Creator of the following natural 
materials: 


1. Oxygen. 

2. Hydrogen. 

3. Nitrogen. 

4. Carbon. 

5. Calcium. 

6. Phosphorus. 

7. Sulphur. 

8. Sodium. 

9. Chlorine. 

10. Fluorine. 

11. Iron. 

12. Potassium. 

13. Magnesium. 

14. Silicon. 


49 












50 


Complete Life Building 

The Creator knew what was wanted better than man. Any 
attempt to add to these elements, or to take from them is a 
challenge at the Maker and is followed by severe penalties 
known as sickness. If man had never changed the plan of mak¬ 
ing his own body he would never have been sick, and disease 
would have been unknown. Every infringement on the wise 
plan of creation is penalized. Ill health, therefore, is the pun¬ 
ishment inflicted on man for challenging the plan and purpose 
of the Creator in making the human body. We stand ready to 
prove that as soon as man comes back to the plan and purpose of 
the Creator in the construction of his body, he will reach perfect 
health, and in that respect he will attain one hundred percent 
of civilization. 

But man was not made of the fourteen RAW elements. They 
were woven into combinations suited for the purposes of food. 
To show how close we are to the fatal poisons that surround us, 
let us examine into these elements and their combinations : 

OXYGEN.—This most essential product of the earth is a 
deadly poison and therefore could not be taken as food in its 
raw state; so it is combined in many forms in order to rid itself 
of its dangers. In air it is mixed with nitrogen principally. In 
water it has hydrogen as its assistant. And it is mixed with 
many of the foods and drinks that enter the body. Nitrogen 
alone is not only a fatal poison, but holds in its power some of 
the most violent and dangerous forces; yet it weaves the tissue 
of the human form. Hydrogen likewise has its many kinds of 
danger when used alone. 

CARBON.—This is the fuel of the body, as nitrogen is the 
material from which tissue and flesh are woven; yet carbon by 
itself is a fatal poison. When utilized in the making of proper 
food it breaks down and becomes a most violent and dangerous 
gas, seeking always other affiliations. But if you put these four 
elements together in their composite form you get the basis and 
beginning of all kinds of life in both the animal and vegetable 
kingdoms; albumen and protoplasm. This basis is the one ulti¬ 
mate object of digestion of food, and the beginning of the mak¬ 
ing of pure blood, requiring very little of other elements to com¬ 
plete the work. Spent carbon and oxygen in the exhalations of 
the human body, or in the exhausts of an engine, or used-up gas, 
or other form, are deadly enemies of life. 


Nature’s Doctors 


51 


IRON.—Because the blood needs this element, many doctors 
have ordered its use as a medicine, forgetting that when taken 
as a mineral it is dangerous. To make the value seem more 
real, tests following, the use of iron have shown an increase of the 
red coloring matter in the blood; but science now knows that 
this coloring is a stain and is not a part of the blood structure, 
just as the glow of health on the cheeks of the girls who walk 
back and forth on Chestnut Street, in Philadelphia, is the prod¬ 
uct of the drug store and not of nature. Iron in order to be safe 
must be grown in some plant, and exist in cell-formation in 
vegetation, fruit, cereal, or flesh of beef which- is composed 
always of vegetable-cells. Iron as a mineral is a destroyer of 
lung tissue; and its use has brought on many thousands of cases 
of tuberculosis. To secure it in its cell-form, the most direct 
way is in the use of underdone beef, retaining the red color; or 
in the flesh of a sound potato, eating only the skin and the part 
close to the skin; or in raw milk whole, eaten but not drank; 
or buttermilk; or raw eggs whipped up in raw milk eaten but 
not drank; or the royal juice of red or blue grapes, which is the 
juice pressed from the skin and that part that lies between the 
pulp and the. skin; or the royal flesh of red apples, being that 
part that is closest to the skin of the apple; or in whole wheat, 
oat meal, corn meal, red salmon, and some other foods in less 
quantities. 

CALCIUM.—This element is perhaps the most needed food 
of the body, as the heart action, and brain action, as well as the 
flow of nerve force all depend on calcium. It is found in very 
small quantities in all the foods that contain iron noted above. 
It combines with chlorine, another absolutely necessary element, 
in the form known as calcium chloride, and in this combination 
it is one of the only four foods that can be taken without vege¬ 
table cell growth: Bicarbonate of Soda, Acid Phosphate, Sodium 
Chloride and Calcium Chloride being the four combinations re¬ 
ferred to as foods that need not always appear in cell growth in 
order to be useful. 

COMMON SALT.—This is known above as Sodium Chloride, 
and contains the much needed chlorine, which is difficult to 
secure in any other form. Common salt stands out as the one 
greatest food that need not be grown into vegetable cells in order 
to be safe to eat. Sodium however is one of the most violent of 


52 Complete Life Building 

poisons ; and chlorine is so dangerous as an element that it has 
to be handled with the greatest care: yet it is known as a set¬ 
tled fact that if common salt is not eaten, and none of the other 
salts are taken in its place, death would follow in four or five 
weeks. Fortunately there are many other salts that are found 
in vegetables and especially in beef that take the place of the 
common kind. Certain tribes live wholly without common salt, 
but are hunters and eat flesh and fish, as well as roots and cereals 
rich in other salts. So important is this study that we have de¬ 
voted another part of the book to its consideration. 

BAKING POWDEK.—Following the recent statements con¬ 
cerning foods that can be eaten when not in the form of cell 
growth, we find that baking powder is necessarily composed of 
such foods when it is safe to take at all. But most baking pow¬ 
ders now on the market are real poisons. They eat the lining 
from the stomach, or damage it until congestion and inflamma¬ 
tion follow. More than one hundred million pounds of baking 
powders are used in the United States every year; and of this 
vast tonnage less than one million pounds can be said to be free 
from dangerous poisons. The severest of these powders are 
those that contain aluminium, which is the disguised name for 
alum; and those that contain ammonium, another disguise for 
ammonia. Appendicitis can be traced to these poisons. The 
Government formula is the safest: Bicarbonate of soda, Calcium 
acid phosphate and starch. This kind of baking powder not only 
gives the best results in bread raising, but brings into the body 
the much needed calcium which is very difficult to obtain. In 
addition to this help, the careful and cautious use of common 
salt will give the body its needed chlorine in the form of sodium 
chloride. Health requires not only a sound body but a living 
vitality; and this living vitality must have both calcium and 
chlorine, which may be termed the basis of the spark of life, or 
the spirit in the flesh. 

THE RIGHT FOODS are those that are required by the body 
as absolutely necessary to its construction; in a pure state; and 
properly prepared or cooked. Assuming the two last named 
conditions as present, we find that: 

The absence of any one needed element in the food will surely 
cause disease, often fatal, and always serious and alarming. 

The presence of any element in addition to those needed will 


Nature’s Doctors 53 

in some way injure the body; hence we have two minor laws as 
follows: 

1. The LAW of OVER-BALANCE. 

2. The LAW of UNDER-BALANCE. 

There is an over-balance when there are more than fourteen 
elements. 

There is an under-balance where there are less than fourteen 
elements. 

We have seen that either condition will produce disease. 

But an over-balance may occur when there are all fourteen 
elements and no more, but when one element is far in excess of 
the proportion required by the body. 

And an under-balance may occur when one needed element 
is seriously lacking in its proportionate amount, although 
present. 

In this section of our work we cannot take up the many cases 
that afford illustrations of the wonders of this law and of the 
wise provisions of the Creator in the growth of food with which 
to sustain life. One example will serve as well as a hundred. 
We take RICE as the subject of this example because it is used 
more than any other one article of food throughout the world. 
First we will refer to the widely prevalent malady known as 

BERIBERI.—This has slain many millions because its origin 
and nature have been persistently misunderstood. It is gen¬ 
erally fatal unless checked in the early stages. The blood dries 
up; the feet become paralyzed; and the whole body is stricken. 
It has never been known except among rice-eating nations. 

RICE.—This valuable food is in its natural state surrounded 
by a skm called the pericarp, which may be white, yellow, red, 
or very dark. Or the skin may be of two or more of these colors. 
This skin clings closely to the rice grain and is a part of it. On 
the outside of this skin is the husk. Rice is said to be * 4 cured’’ 
when the husk is removed; and to be “polished” when both the 
husk and the skin are removed. 

The two most common facts in certain phases of Oriental life 
were for many years: first, the almost universal use of rice as 
food; second, the epidemic disease of beriberi, regarded then as 
incurable. For many years experts who studied the disease of¬ 
fered theory after theory, and all were wrong. An accident in 
1897 brought to light both the cause and the remedy. In the 


54 


Complete Life Building 

great island of Java the beriberi epidemic raged unchecked 
from 1882 to 1897, fifteen years. The famous Dutch physician, 
Eijkman, who was stationed at Java, had his attention called to 
the sickness and deaths among poultry from a malady that had 
the same symptoms as beriberi. Upon asking for information 
among the domestics attached to the hospital he learned that 
some days before the outbreak, the poultry had been fed some 
“ polished ” rice that had been left over in the kitchen. The 
physician, thinking he saw the solution of the question, obtained 
from other rice, the husks and skin surfaces, and fed them at 
once to such of the poultry as survived, although they were 
badly stricken. To his surprise and satisfaction, they all got 
well very quickly. 

Polished rice given to birds will cause neuritis, in a form 
known as polyneuritis. But if the outer coating of rice be given 
them, immediate relief follows. The next step was to prove that 
whole rice will cure this disease, which polished rice will cause. 
The outer coating of rice must contain something intended by 
nature for the benefit of life; and the practice of polishing it 
must be a crime against the health of man. Yet in America 
there is hardly any rice sold except the polished kind. To add 
to its danger, it is covered with parafine to produce a higher 
polish. It then sells for eighty percent more than the less at¬ 
tractive kind, and is wholly an unfit food. 

By this example we have shown that one of the most impor¬ 
tant and valuable articles of food, rice, may by being under- 
balanced cause disease; and that the very disease so caused may 
be cured by feeding the discarded husk of the rice. 

In the Malay peninsular in 1910, Doctors Fraser and Stanton 
found the natives suffering from an epidemic of beriberi due to 
having been fed polished rice. The only medicine given them 
was natural rice, with the skin on, and this medicine brought 
about a cure in every instance where it was given before death 
had claimed its victims. Surely this is a better medicine than 
drugs. 

In the Philippines in 1910, Major Chamberlain of the U. S. 
Army Medical Corps had among the native Scouts about 600 
cases of beriberi caused by eating American prepared polished 
rice. The diet included among other things twenty ounces daily 
of polished rice. For this he substituted sixteen ounces of un- 


Nature’s Doctors 


55 


polished rice. No medicine was required. At the end of the 
year 1910, the cases of beriberi were reduced to 50; in 1911, there 
were only three; in 1912, there were but two; and in 1913, not 
one. A few years later polished rice was used for food by some 
families, who became victims of the disease; several losing their 
lives before the remedy was applied. 

Polished rice is a wholly unbalanced food, containing almost 
nothing beyond one element, and this is supposed to hold a poi¬ 
son, for which nature provided an antidote in the contents of 
the skin on the rice. This fact does not warrant people in re¬ 
fusing to eat rice if they can get it in the form nearer to nature; 
while, to be sure, the white portion is a poison, the whole rice in 
its combination consists of all the elements needed by the human 
body, to which is added an antidote for the poisonous interior of 
the grain. 

It is all wonderful. 

What is true of rice is true in part if not in whole of many 
other kinds of food. We made the assertion that under-balanced 
food will cause disease. We have made good this claim in this 
instance; and more than that we have shown that an under¬ 
balanced food has destroyed the lives of millions of human be¬ 
ings in the past. Our position is this: 

THE GREAT LAW OF LAWS is the supreme law of life, 
and must be obeyed. 

Withdraw one of the fourteen elements of food, and you may 
slay millions. Restore the lost element, and you have the per¬ 
fect medicine by which this dread and awful malady may be 
cured. Since writing this bit of history, our attention has been 
called to official reports to the effect that beriberi has recently 
been fully cured by nothing more than the rejected husks of 
rice; while the most highly endorsed medicines in the form of 
drugs have all proved useless. 

Let us go along further. 

Pellagra— This disease prevails in the South, especially in re¬ 
gions where a full variety of food cannot be obtained. A work 
published by Dr. Goldberger, of the U. S. Public Health Service, 
has proved with certainty that this very troublesome malady is 
due to lack of all the needed elements in the food. He calls it a 
deficiency disease, which means the same thing. 

Rickets .—This trouble comes to many children; it is a soften- 


56 


Complete Life Building 

ing or underdevelopment of the bones. For generations the 
remedy was sought in medicines, but without success. It is now 
known to be due to lack of some of the fourteen elements: when 
these are all present in the food, the cure is assured. This fact 
is not by any means a new one; it was established long ago, and 
is now understood by all doctors. What concerns us is the proof 
that a complete food selection will cure disease. 

Loss of Hair .—But here we have a new remedy for a very old 
trouble. Millions of people are bald-headed; and other millions 
are suffering the humiliation of losing their hair in part. About 
forty years ago the Ralston Health Club began to suspect that 
the loss of hair was due to the lack of all the body elements in 
the food; but not until the past five years have we given the 
matter a full test. We are now able to assert that loss of hair 
may be prevented by including in the diet the elements that build 
hair. When we come to think of it, the truth is so clearly ap¬ 
parent that the wonder is it was not discovered two thousand 
years ago. The logic is simple: Hair requires certain material 
which must be in the blood, and which the blood must deposit in 
the scalp as it circulates in that part of the body. As the blood 
derives its material from the food eaten, this element must be 
eaten if nutrition for the hair is sought. It is a matter of fact 
that nearly all the food of modern times is lacking in this mate¬ 
rial ; hence the loss of hair in some cases, and total baldness in 
others. 

People who have carefully selected foods containing all the 
fourteen elements have found a steady improvement in the 
growth and vitality of the hair. 

Wrinkled Skin .—There are mechanical causes for deep wrin¬ 
kles on the face; and there is also a food deficiency cause in 
many cases. The skin is made from certain elements; if they 
are lacking in the food, the skin is bound to show depressions 
or valleys. Proof of this fact is sustained by experiments going 
on for many years in which certain persons have never failed 
to include all food elements in their diet, and, although very 
old, they show no wrinkles on their faces. A fact of this kind 
means something; it cannot be argued out of existence. 

Calcium. The real life of the body, and of its brain and its 
nervous system depend on calcium. A great physician who was 
also a great chemist, was once asked what in his opinion stood 


Nature’s Doctors 


57 


nearest the life of the body; and his reply was Calcium . It is 
the cause of the heart-beat; when it is not present in proper pro¬ 
portion in the daily food, the heart is weak. It also enables cuts 
and wounds to heal; where there is lack of calcium, the cut will 
never heal. Nose bleed is often due to lack of this element. All 
blood losses are assisted in efforts to stop them by this element; 
and in tuberculosis it is useful especially where there are hemor¬ 
rhages. When the nerves, the brain, and the vitality are de¬ 
pressed, the use of calcium foods will cause an immediate revival. 

Hay Fever .—The Ralston Health Club has discovered that 
victims of hay fever, rose cold and similar maladies, lack cal¬ 
cium chloride; or the combination of calcium and chlorine in 
their food. As a result many cures of this disease have been 
taking place in the last year, although it has long been regarded 
as incurable. But the cures are facts. How to get calcium in 
the body is the question. It is not easily introduced in the food; 
but there are foods that contain calcium fluorine; and there is 
common salt that contains chlorine; from these two it is possible 
to build the needed calcium chloride that is the cure for hay 
fever. More will be said about this in a later page. 

Salt .—Some persons claim that they do not need salt. This 
food consists of sodium and chlorine, and is known to the chem¬ 
ist as sodium chloride. Digestion is impossible without hydro¬ 
chloric acid; which is made of hydrogen, the water element, and 
of chlorine; these constitute what is known as the gastric juice, 
which carries on the work of digestion. As salt is the only food 
that contains chlorine, it follows that if you do not eat salt, you 
cannot digest your food; and this is the fact. Salt, therefore, 
furnishes more than one value to life; it gives us the gastric 
juice; it brings chlorine into the blood; and it enables the cal¬ 
cium there to combine and produce calcium chloride, the cure 
for hay fever. So impressive has become the importance of cal¬ 
cium chloride as the cure for hay fever, that one of the most 
reliable chemical laboratories in America has begun to make it 
and place it on sale. But the better way is to secure it in food 
selection. The best single food for this purpose is found in baked 
potatoes, well salted to meet the taste, and covered with heavy 
cream from raw milk, eating the skins of the potatoes: for the 
full food value is found in the skins and in the potato within a 
half inch of the skin. This means that the thickness of the half 


58 


Complete Life Building 

inch next to the skin, with the latter, contain the full food value 
of the potato. It is not wise to over-salt the food in order to get 
the required amount of salt; the better plan is to eat as many 
potatoes as you can at one meal and salt them to taste. In the 
skins of the potatoes and in the cream, you will secure an abun¬ 
dance of calcium; while you will find the needed chlorine in the 
salt. Nature will do the rest when they enter the stomach. To 
quote the words of a well-known scientific writer : “These ele¬ 
ments separate and make new formations; from the material 
they furnish the finished product; but how we do not know. ’ ’ 

If we attempt to use the foods of nature contrary to her plan, 
she offers us deadly poisons. One illustration of this fact is 
seen in the use of rice. 

Salt is made of sodium, a very violent poison; and of the still 
more poisonous gas, chlorine; yet in combination it is not only 
harmless when taken only as the taste demands, but is necessary. 

Potatoes .—Here is another food that stands at the head of 
body-building material, yet when wrongly used is a poison. We 
have seen that rice when stripped of its skin is the cause of one 
of the most fearful diseases known; yet that the skin is a cure 
of that very malady. 

The only food value in a potato is the skin itself, and the part 
of potato that lies under the skin for about a half inch to an 
inch, depending on the size of the tuber. Yet during* the great 
war when food was scarce and the government was urging peo¬ 
ple to plant potatoes even in their flower gardens, cooks were 
peeling and throwing away the only parts that had any value, 
and were retaining and cooking the part that was a direct poi¬ 
son. In consequence of the unusually large use of this kind of 
food, humanity suffered from an epidemic that had been hitherto 
unknown: the “flu” or new form of influenza, which left in its 
wake many millions of victims that have not yet recovered their 
full health, and most of whom never will. 

Potatoes fried or boiled, eaten in the quantity that prevailed 
during the war, will again cause the “flu” and will also be re¬ 
sponsible for the grippe and other deficiency maladies. 

Rice eaten without the skin is without the slightest doubt the 
slayer of millions; but eaten with the skin it is an ideal food 
when taken with salt and light cream from raw milk. There is 
no better food. 


Nature’s Doctors 


59 


A half truth is dangerous and often fatal to life. The gov¬ 
ernment during the war when food was scarce cited the case of 
persons who had lived on nothing but potatoes all their lives, 
and of one well authenticated case of a woman who lived for 
more than one hundred years and had never eaten any other 
food but potatoes. It so happened that investigation was possi¬ 
ble in her case. She lived all the time in the country where she 
had clean raw milk: at least raw milk whether it was clean or 
not; of the cleanliness we cannot vouch except by inference. 
But her potato diet of three meals a day consisted of the whole 
potato, and they were in the latter years of her life, the best of 
all varieties, Irish Cobblers. But she ate SKINS and all! She 
never fried or boiled them: always baked them. And she ate 
them salted, and with plenty of cream from raw milk, for she 
knew nothing of the deadening of milk by sterilizing. 

Here is a food that contains all the fourteen elements required 
to build life; and in the exact proportion: Potatoes with the 
skins on, and never in any form, except baked, salted to taste; 
and with plenty of cream from raw milk. Such a diet will pro¬ 
long life indefinitely, will drive out disease, and will increase the 
vitality of the whole system. It is a complete food in every 
respect. Nor is it tiresome. No fully balanced food is ever 
tiresome. 

This diet is the first and safest change in the life of the infant 
that is being weaned; with the exception that for one year the 
outer film should be scraped off; but this does not diminish the 
food value of the baked potato. The cream also should be quite 
thin, but as fresh as possible. It is the one dependable article 
of food for this purpose. 

Oat Meal .—This cereal is the best of all foods in the cereal 
class for the human body. But like rice it must be understood 
and used carefully. When cooked less than three hours, oat 
meal is a direct poison, especially for the liver. It does not 
change its character unless it has three hours of disintegration 
by being cooked; then it is an entirely different thing. The best 
of all ways to cook it is in the fireless cooker; start it on the 
regular stove, transfer it to the fireless, and cook it all night. 
In the morning toast it for a few minutes on the regular stove. 
Eat it with salt and cream; or with sugar and cream. We 
know of men of the greatest virility both of brain and body who 


60 


Complete Life Building 

have had nothing else for their breakfasts for forty years. With 
the cream it contains all fourteen elements in perfect combina¬ 
tion and will prolong life indefinitely. 

If a person were in ill health, and wished to diet on the one- 
food plan which means only one kind of food at each meal, here 
are both breakfast and supper: the former of oat meal and 
cream; the latter of the baked potatoes and cream. Two meals 
are thus provided; and at one-tenth the cost of the worthless 
kinds now served. More than that you will get to like them. 

We are not asking you to adopt these ideas; our only purpose 
now is to show you what is meant by 100 Percent Right in Food 
Selection. 

The Creator has made the human body in His own way, and 
Nature proves that when man undertakes to alter the plan that 
has been established there is an endless array of penalties; as 
may be seen from the vast libraries of books on diseases, the 
ever increasing hordes of doctors, the setting up of drug stores 
on every corner, the growing demand for hospitals, the train 
loads of medicines that daily sweep through the land, and the 
accumulation of surgical instruments which now are so numerous 
that if piled up in one place they would make a mountain from 
which you could behold more than four hundred square miles 
of land. 

If the food that is daily fed to the human body were to con¬ 
tain all the fourteen elements in their proper combinations, and 
no other elements, the following results would be attained: ’ 

1. You could not make the body sick by any means you could 
devise. 

2. A body that is built of these fourteen elements is perfectly 
immune against all disease, no matter how virulent, and no mat¬ 
ter what the exposure. It is simply impossible for disease to 
secure a foothold for there is no soil in which its germs can take 
growth. In all germ maladies two things are required: germs 
and soil. No germs can grow without the soil; and there is no 
germ soil in any of the fourteen elements. 

We live in an age in which the BRAIN controls humanity, 
and furnishes all the errors from which come sickness and every 
form of misfortune. 

We are now on the threshold of a new age in which the MIND 
is to control; and that will bring the 100 Percent of Civilization 


Nature’s Doctors 


61 


towards which all life tends, or else living is in vain. The mind 
does the right thing always; the brain never does. As proof of 
this fact let us see if you can grasp this proposition: Furnishing 
the body with the exact food material which it requires, is the 
right thing: furnishing it with something else is the wrong 
thing. 

Can you grasp it? 

HUMANITY IS JUST WAKING UP 

Nature did the best she could, and mankind has been trying 
to find out what nature intended as food. If man lived on the 
earth a hundred thousand years ago, and it is claimed that he 
was here long before that time, he had many a stomach ache in 
his experiments with eatables. The first generation had no one 
to tell them the difference between toadstools and mushrooms, 
and similar differences in other lines of things; so they were 
compelled to test them for themselves. 

But even at this time the procession of tests has not reached 
a final distinction between toadstools and mushrooms; for one of 
the greatest living authorities on mushrooms recently died from 
eating toadstools. 

The same kind of experimenting has been going on for more 
than one hundred thousand years; and millions of people have 
laid down their lives in the effort to ascertain the difference 
between what can be safely eaten and what is dangerous. They 
to-day have got as far as tomatoes; a so-called food that contains 
no food elements, but that is good for the scurvy, although there 
are many of the true foods that are better for that blood dis¬ 
order. Oxalic acid in water is also good for the scurvy, but it 
kills the rest of the body. Tomatoes contain oxalic acid. 

Perfect health has never been found in any foreign nation; 
and some part of the reason may be learned from the following 
things they devour with delight: 

1. Seaweed is eaten in Japan. 

2. Candied grasshoppers are eaten in Japan. 

3. Powdered deer horns are eaten in China. 

4. Rats and mice are eaten in China. 

5. Dogs and cats are eaten in China, and of late years in many 
other countries, and in our own land in sausage meat. 


62 Complete Life Building 

6. Horse flesh is eaten in France and other European coun¬ 
tries. 

7. Fried rhinoceros hide is eaten in Africa. 

8. Pickled pigs feet are eaten in many countries. 

9. Moldy cheese ready for the moving picture camera, is eaten 
in England. 

10. Snails and frogs ’ legs are eaten in France, and elsewhere. 

11. Grasshoppers, fried and made into meal, furnish the staple 
food of its class in Arabia. 

12. Snakes and lizards are eaten by the North American 
Indians. 

13. Octopus is eaten by the people of Naples. 

14. Wood grubs are eaten by the Maoris of New Zealand. 

15. The eggs of the Volga sturgeon are eaten as caviar by the 
Russians. 

16. Human flesh was eaten by the Fiji Islanders. 

17. Sweetbreads, roes, brains and kidneys are generally eaten 
to-day. 

18. Oysters, clams, lobsters, crabs, terrapin, mussels and 
shrimps are all scavengers of the sea, and contain poisons that 
have caused more deaths than any other line of foods. 

Oysters consist of two parts, the soft and the hard; the former 
is liver and the latter muscle fibre. The liver contains glycogen, 
and the fibrous part has no food value. They are not a true 
food. 

Clams are like oysters in their composition, but harder to 
digest. 

Lobsters, no matter how fresh, poison some persons, and in 
many other instances they set up a skin irruption. 

Crabs and terrapin are bedded in filth and putrid matter on 
which they feed. 

Mussels are poisonous and have caused many deaths. Shrimps 
are of the same class but milder in character. 

Intelligence is the fruit of the brain; and may be wrong and 
yet intelligent. The dog and horse are intelligent. They have 
no guiding rule to tell them when they are right or wrong. 

The banker and broker may be highly intelligent; yet may be 
wrong when they devote themselves so severely to finance that 
they fall dead in their chairs from heart disease, as thousands 


Nature’s Doctors 


63 


of them do. Doctors say tnere are countless cases of ruined 
heart action, following the awful strain of the struggle for 
wealth. Such a manner of living is not right. 

People who dwell in cities are certainly intelligent ; yet they 
are wrong when they select as a place of abode a crowded local¬ 
ity where the dust of the streets, laden with the pulverized filth 
of animal excretions, floats in at the windows and falls on tables, 
dishes, foods, clothing, beds and carpets, only to be inhaled and 
re-inhaled into the lungs; where pure air is never possible; and 
where the distracting noises of the night permit only a semi¬ 
sleep that invites nervous breakdown. Such a manner of living 
is not right; but it is highly intelligent. 

The people who eat those things that are not suited to the body 
are intelligent ; but they are wrong. They cannot see that the 
body requires for its building and repair the same food ele¬ 
ments that make the body; not the things that cannot enter into 
any part of its life. Intelligence may begin with the lowest 
form of animal existence and climb to the dizzy heights of 
human genius; but at its best, in its noblest grandeur, it is far 
below that divine quality, the MIND. At the risk of tiring you, 
let us say that the test is this: 

Whatever is absolutely RIGHT is the work and gift of the 
mind. 

All else is the work of the intelligence, ranging from the 
worm in the mud, or the cave man gnawing a bone, up to the 
broker who gasps for his breath as his heart breaks down, or 
the doctor who builds up his practice by telling his patients to 
eat what they like. 

INSTINCT WAS ONCE ACTIVE TO AID HUMANITY 

It has been claimed that only the animal kingdom receives 
help from Nature through instinct. But we see in a number of 
ways the assistance of this power in human life. 

BLEEDING. 

PHYSICKING. 

FASTING. 

Doctors were once called leeches. A leech was employed to 
suck the blood from a sick person. It is an aquatic worm, known 
as a blood-sucker. Any dictionary to-day gives as one of the 


64 


Complete Life Building 

definitions of leech, a doctor, as well as a blood-sucker. What 
taught people to draw blood in order to relieve sickness? In¬ 
stinct. The theory was that sickness came from the presence of 
poisons in the system; and this theory proved correct; but in 
taking had blood, good blood was drawn also, and this left the 
patient weak, and tended to bring on death by lowering the 
power of resistance. 

But it showed the purpose to rid the body of its poisons. 

Doctors were once called lances. A lancet was a steel instru¬ 
ment made to take the place of the leech; and instinct impelled 
its use for the same reason. 

To-day doctors are called physicians. A physician is one who 
physics. Instinct taught the race that the poisons were in the 
blood and also in the intestinal canal; so the effort has been made 
of late years to drive them out by laxatives and purges. It is 
all the same battle against the presence of poisons in the body. 

A leech was a poison remover. 

A lance was a poison remover. 

A physician was a poison remover. 

A faster was a poison remover. 

Fasting is older in practice than leeching, lancing or physick¬ 
ing; and was taught in all religions from the beginning. It is a 
slow way of getting rid of the locked-up poisons of the body. 

It will thus be seen that the great curative methods of the 
world for thousands of years have been directed against the poi¬ 
sons that have been brought into the body by what enters the 
mouth; foods and other things being guilty of producing the 
cause of sickness and the support of doctors. This being the case 
it would seem to be the part of wisdom to lessen the kinds of 
food that are most to blame. 

It all comes down to the law of right; of being one hundred 
percent right; which means taking into the body as food only 
the things that contain the needed elements; the FOURTEEN 
ELEMENTS; and to use them in balanced form. This is possi¬ 
ble at all times; and it is to teach these truths that the Ralston 
Health Club comes into your life at this time. 

DO YOU KNOW that if you eat only the fourteen elements 
in balanced form, you will never have to drive poisons from the 
body; and the absence of poisons will keep out the soil in which 
the germs of disease find harbor and on which they thrive ? 


FIFTH SECTION 


BUILDING THE BODY 



iHREE THINGS are sought by the Ralston Health 
Club in its efforts to make surgery unnecessary. In 
the first place, there must be a method whereby the 
poisons in the body may be drawn off before they set 
up weakness or disease. In the second place, there 
must be found the exact foods that are required to sustain per¬ 
fect life in all the various parts of the system. In the third 
place, the means of repairing injury already done must be found 
and applied. 

Where damage has already been done to any organ, that organ 
now is weak, and some form of disease has begun to enter it. 
The steps that a malady take are often sheathed and hidden un¬ 
til the disease is beyond repair. This is seen in Bright’s disease, 
also in consumption, and often in strain on the arteries of the 
heart, and sometimes in diabetes; and yet, in the early stages of 
all these maladies, there is abundant hope of cure. Consumption 
and diabetes can be overcome in nine cases out of every ten, if 
the methods of this book are adopted. 

There are two kinds of life in the body: 

1. The general life of the whole body. 

2. The separate lives of the parts within that make up the 
whole body. 

The stopping of one of these parts will bring death to the 
whole body while, in fact, it should not be regarded as dead, for 
only one part has stopped its work, and that part should be 
made to renew it again. 


65 



















66 


Complete Life Building 

Life renewal begins with mouth digestion. 

Out of more than one hundred thousand experiments made 
under all conditions, it has been found sufficient to merely chew 
the food enough to thoroughly mix it with the saliva. If this 
mixing can be done in a second of time, so that every particle 
of the food is touched by the saliva, that is long enough. Some 
persons are able to give the food one turn in the mouth and 
thereby bring it into contact with the saliva, and so eat rapidly; 
but it is never wise to swallow any food without first allowing 
the saliva to touch it. The following rules will help understand 
this law: 

Rule 1 .—It is not necessary to chew food very long, if it is 
chewed thoroughly. 

Rule 2 .—All solid food should be taken into the mouth in very 
small lots. 

Rule 3 .—All solid food should either be chewed or turned 
over in the mouth until every part of it has been brought into 
contact with saliva. It is then ready to be swallowed. 

Rule 4 .—All liquid food should also be turned over in the 
mouth for the purpose of mixing with the saliva. 

Rule 5.—Liquids that are not food drive the saliva back 
through the glands and prevent its mingling with food in the 
mouth; therefore no food should be washed down into the stom¬ 
ach by water, tea, coffee, beer, liquor, wine or other non-food 
liquid, as none of these are foods. 

Rule 6. —Milk, cream, soups, broths, simple gravies, and the 
like, are foods, and may be eaten with solids provided they are 
kept in the mouth long enough to enable the saliva to mix all 
through them. 

Rule 7. —Food, whether solid or liquid, that is swallowed into 
the stomach without mixing with the saliva of the mouth, lacks 
the first essential of digestion, which is freedom from fermenta¬ 
tion. 

Rule 8 .—The powerful antiseptic value of saliva destroys all 
germs in bad food, and all poisons that arise from ferment. As 
proof of this law, persons seated at the same table with those 
who are killed by ptomain poison from partly spoiled fish or 
meats, are saved from death by reason of the fact that they sali¬ 
vate their food thoroughly, while the victims are of the class 
known as “bolters of food,” or those who swallow without chew- 


Nature’s Doctors 67 

ing, or who wash their food down with water, tea, coffee, beer, 
wine or liquor. 

Thousands die every year from ptomain poisoning; and other 
thousands who eat the same kind of food, but salivate it, are 
not even made sick. 

Rule 9 .—The purest food will ferment in the stomach if not 
first salivated at the mouth. 

Rule 10 .—Gas in the stomach of grown persons, eructations, 
ferment of food all through the tract, flatulence, “rolling’’ of 
the bowels, and similar disturbances are due to the decay of the 
food after it has been swallowed; and the best food will so decay 
instead of digesting if it is not salivated; while, on the other 
hand, salivation at the mouth will make such troubles impossible. 

Rule 11 .—The drinking of water during meals is a help to 
digestion if the water is taken in small quantities, and is not 
mixed with food in the mouth. Mixing with food in the stomach 
during and after a meal is helpful. Cold water should be taken 
slowly and sparingly, but as often as desired. 

All babies and young children should be given cold water, 
even ice water if relished, but in sips. It has been proved that 
small quantities of cold water given to very young babies, if 
given on the end of a spoon, will relieve them and assist in in¬ 
ducing sleep. This practice has been of the greatest help to 
tired mothers who formerly were compelled to stay awake nights 
to comfort crying children. Most babies cry because of thirst. 

Rule 12 .—Hasty swallowing of good food brings on ferment 
in the stomach; and hasty swallowing of bad food increases the 
danger of immediate distress and sickness, sometimes quickly 
bringing on acute indigestion and death. 

Rule 13 .—The saliva of the mouth furnishes the first cells of 
life-builders; and the gastric juice of the stomach furnishes the 
second set of life-building cells. 

Rule 14 .—The gastric juice will not flow in abundance to the 
stomach unless the palate stimulates such action. 

There is always some slight flow of gastric juice, but not a nor¬ 
mal or healthy flow, unless the palate originates it. The question 
may be asked, how can the palate which is at the mouth affect 
the stomach juices? The answer is plain. The digestive tract 
acts as a whole. There have been many proofs of the fact that 
the palate really controls the stomach. One of the old theories 


68 Complete Life Building 

that was believed by every physician for generations has re¬ 
cently been exploded. It was always supposed that the presence 
of food in the stomach excited the flow of gastric juice; but this 
is now known not to be true. 

Rule 15 .—The contents of the stomach have nothing to do 
with the flow of gastric juice into that organ. 

Food in the stomach will not invite the digestive fluids. Ex¬ 
periments by the thousands have been made to prove this fact, 
some by direct observation during operations when the interior 
action of the- stomach was seen, and others by indirect but 
equally effective means. It was formerly believed that the pres¬ 
ence of food in the stomach, by touching its walls, would set up 
the same kind of excitement that food in the mouth does, and 
would therefore draw forth the juices. But the reverse is true. 

Rule 16 .—That which pleases or displeases the palate of the 
mouth will aid or hinder digestion at. the stomach. 

Some great experiments have been made to- prove this rule. 
The number of stomachs that have been operated upon are in the 
thousands. The operation seems to be safe- at all times, as we 
have never heard of any result that was not satisfactory, and 
lives have been saved in this way when there was no other source 
of help. The- Pawlow experiments are briefly stated as follows, 
although they are now known to all the world: 

1. Every effort was made to cause gastric juice to flow into 
stomachs that had been cut open and exposed to view; the in¬ 
terior walls were, scraped, then they were excited by the action 
of a feather, then by the introduction of rough sand and finally 
by putting tempting food within. In every instance the stomach 
remained dry. 

2. Bread placed in. the stomach remained for hours unacted 
upon. The coagulated whites of eggs were undigested. The un¬ 
cooked white of eggs passed through the porous walls of the 
stomach, but this was done by absorption, as - no gastric juices 
appeared. Raw meat, after a long period, started a very slight 
flow, but not enough to act upon the meat. 

3. In order to test the law of digestion, all these foods were 
left in the stomach, and then an opening was cut into the throat 
below the place where the swallowing occurs. Through this 


Nature’s Doctors 69 

opening any food that was swallowed was caught and brought 
out into a pan, so that it did not pass into the stomach. 

4. The most dainty and tempting, yet wholesome food, was 
given into the mouth, and eagerly swallowed, then taken from 
the gullet, and none of it entered the stomach. This same food 
was again eaten and swallowed time after time. The eating and 
swallowing were natural. Not a morsel reached the stomach, 
yet the gastric juice poured into that organ in enormous 
quantities. 

5. The saliva was collected from the mouth after each act of 
swallowing; and the gastric juice was collected from the stom¬ 
ach; these were used as insolvents on other food that was not 
then at hand, and they were found sufficient to digest several 
large meals. 

6. Food that remained in the stomach stagnated there up to 
the time that the palate was excited. When the palate was ex¬ 
cited by the action of pleasing food eagerly swallowed, the stom¬ 
ach, although receiving none of the food, became flooded with 
gastric juice, and this juice together with the saliva, when taken 
away to some other scene, had the power to digest food in a 
plate. 

Rule 17 .—The eager desire for the food increases the flow of 
gastric juice to the stomach and aids its power of digestion. 

Rule 18 .—Hunger so far aids digestion that the stomach acts 
easily on foods that ordinarily would cause indigestion. 

Rule 19 .—Starvation intensifies the eagerness of the stomach 
for food, and the gastric juices are able to digest things that are 
absolutely dangerous under other conditions. 

In starvation the first touch of food to the mouth and palate 
results in a flood of saliva, and in an inrush of gastric juice at 
the stomach; and the life-cells in both these fluids act quickly 
and thoroughly, turning almost worthless sfuff into food. Grass, 
wood, leather and weeds have been digested by starving bodies. 

The main lesson from Rule 19 is that fasting leads to an 
appetite, and this custom has been in use for thousands of years. 
We do not teach fasting except when a person wishes to under¬ 
take the course of discarding the old body, and building up a 
wholly new body; and then it must be done by common sense 
methods and not at haphazard, for fasting leads to great dan- 


70 


Complete Life Building 

gers in after life. The principle, however, is a great one. It 
brings on semi-starvation, and thus creates an intensely strong 
and valuable appetite. 

Buie 20 .—The action of any pleasing matter upon the palate 
causes gastric juice to flow into an empty stomach. 

The walls of the stomach, when empty, sometimes come to¬ 
gether. As has been stated, this organ is the only part of the 
body that will digest itself. It is not true that the stomach will 
actually destroy its own walls by digesting them; although there 
are cases where this has partly occurred; but it is. true that the 
walls of the stomach will do each other a great injury, slowly 
but surely, by the presence of gastric juice in an empty stom¬ 
ach. These walls are nothing but tripe. Put a piece of tripe 
raw or cooked into the stomach, and, if the gastric juice is in¬ 
vited in, this tripe will be digested like any meat. 

Buie 21 .—The habit of chewing when the stomach is empty 
tends to set up a process of digestion which congests the walls 
of the stomach, and results in weak stomach, and forms of 
gastritis. 

If you chew gum or tobacco or other thing, causing a flow of 
saliva in the mouth, at the same time you are causing, in the 
same act, a flood of gastric juice to the stomach. If the latter is 
empty, then there is nothing digestible but its own walls, and 
these are acted upon by the powerful solvent fluids in the gas¬ 
tric juice. The walls’ become inflamed and very red. Their 
irritation is not healed for some time after. Food will not be 
well digested by an inflamed stomach. 

Buie 22 .—The same chewing that will inflame an empty 
stomach will aid digestion when the stomach contains food. 

If you are a gum-chewer and must chew gum, chew it when 
there is food in your stomach; but never when that organ is 
empty. 

If you must smoke, then do so when there is food in your stom¬ 
ach; for smoking on an empty stomach excites the flow of gas¬ 
tric juice, that tends to digest the walls of the stomach and to 
set up inflammation thereby. It is true that the man who is a 
slave to the pipe or cigar, gets from smoking some aid to 
digestion. 

Buie 23 .—When a hearty meal has been eaten it should end 
with the holding in the mouth of some greatly liked dainty 


Nature^ Doctors 71 

which by exciting the palate, will maintain a constant flow of 
gastric juice in the stomach. 

This Eule has been employed in the cure of indigestion to 
such an extent that some such thing as a raisin, a piece of 
candy, a candy-mint, or anything that is greatly enjoyed has 
been used to stimulate digestion with regularity, and some of 
the most obstinate cases have yielded in this way. One man 
who was exceedingly fond of olives, held half an olive in his 
mouth for an hour after each meal; another a bit of very hard 
candy; another a piece of flavored chewing gum, which he was 
ashamed to chew, as he was a judge and presided at court; an¬ 
other a piece of candied ginger. 

Rule 24 .—Foods that do not please the palate should not be 
eaten. 

The reverse of this rule is not true as we shall see. But it is 
always true that a person should never eat what is not relished. 
The only exception is the eating of plain, wholesome food by 
one who has abused the stomach, and who seeks and craves unfit 
foods only. Sick stomachs have a depraved taste, and morbid 
palates demand only morbid foods. Thus an inflamed stomach 
and disordered liver rebel against milk, which is the most 
natural of all foods. 

Rule 25 .—All things that please the palate are not good to be 
eaten. 

While you should seek such foods as are pleasant to eat, you 
should not eat everything that pleases you. In the first place it 
is hard to satisfy an inflamed stomach. Until that organ is in 
good health, you cannot tell exactly what you do like, for there 
are scores of things that tickle the palate, yet that would kill 
you if you were to eat them. 

Rule 26 .—The nearer the body comes to perfect health, the 
more the stomach and palate will crave simple, plain and whole¬ 
some foods. 

Rule 27 .—If there is an intense craving for anything that is 
hurtful, the better way is to hold it in the mouth after eating a 
meal of wholesome food, but avoid swallowing any of it. 


SIXTH SECTION 


LIFE ENEMIES 

VERYTHING that lives in a physical sense, comes to 
that change that is known as death, although nothing 
actually dies. The human body matures and takes 
on age, in its progress to the end. Despite all the 
efforts of man, the body sooner or later is dissolved, 
and its material returns back to earth from which it came. 

We have shown in the earlier part of this book that life con¬ 
sists of cells. No matter how complicated may be the organism 
that is built by the union of the cells, it is always an accumula¬ 
tion of such parts. The hardest bone is merely a mass of cells 
taking shape. The same is true of every organ, and of each 
detail of the body. 

Every time the blood courses through the system it leaves 
countless millions of new cells that are employed in maintaining 
the repair and growth of the body. In the meanwhile the activi¬ 
ties of life within the body have caused countless millions of old 
cells to spend themselves. The new become old in a short time. 
The result is that the blood soon finds itself confronted by dead 
cells in all directions. 

Rule 28 .—Every dead cell is as much a poison for its size, as 
is every dead carcass. The TRUE FOODS make less poison. 

We bury our dead. If we did not, they would quickly be¬ 
come a menace to all life. From fields of unburied dead in times 
of war, there arise pestilence and foul diseases. Yet there are at 
this moment within your body more millions of dead carcasses 

72 














Nature’s Doctors 


73 


to the cubic inch than your mind can conceive of; and they are 
accumulating all the time. Compared with their size, they give 
forth the same stench, and the same degree of putrid dangers 
as those that are rising from the unburied dead on the battle¬ 
field. In the latter case, the dead are in the open where there is 
more freedom and more opportunity for change; while the car¬ 
casses within the human body are confined in close places, and 
their toxins are more active. 

Rule 29 .—Dead tissue within the body is the first enemy of 
life. 

By tissue is meant the masses of cells that are formed con¬ 
stantly in the process of living. When two or more cells unite, 
they are called tissue in animal life, and humanity is a part of 
the animal kingdom. It is necessary that new tissue be formed 
every minute of the day and night; and it cannot be formed 
unless the tissue that is already at hand shall break down to 
make way for it. This breaking down is the natural method by 
which life is carried on. If you could see your body, as with 
the all-embracing eye of some powerful instrument strong 
enough to detect so small a thing as a cell, you would behold 
every part of yourself dissolving, crumbling to small particles, 
melting from living tissue to dead cells; and this change would 
never cease nor even take a minute’s rest; nor would any part 
of the body be exempt from it. 

At the same time you would see new cells springing forth from 
the swift current of the blood and taking the places of those that 
were breaking down. But you would not see the dead cells pass¬ 
ing out. They would be there awaiting means of getting away; 
and for every minute they waited, a cloud of vapor would go 
forth from them, filled with what is called toxin or tissue-poison. 

Rule 30 .—Nature creates germs to destroy the dead. 

If there are unburied bodies on the battle-field, they will be¬ 
come sources of rank poisoning; and thereupon nature will send 
special germs whose duty it is to eat up the rotting flesh. In 
some places, birds that are called vultures devour the flesh in a 
short time; but in most places there are no eaters except the 
germs known as bacteria. 

The same rule holds true in disposing of the dead tissue in the 
human body. If it cannot be thrown off by the usual processes 
germs will come in and do the work. But germs, having started 


74 


Complete Life Building 

to destroy the dead tissue, will not stop there, but will involve 
the live tissue as well. This is the source of disease. 

Buie 31. —Disease is the activity of special germs that are 
created to destroy dead tissue. 

Death, therefore, is merely a change; and destruction comes 
after death. The man who dies and is buried is not dead except 
in a general sense; but he will sooner or later become dissolved 
when the parts of his body shall have been torn asunder, sepa¬ 
rated from each other, and scattered. Each cell is eaten up by 
some disease germ. 

Buie 32. —For every kind of dead tissue there is a kind of 
disease germ that nature has created to destroy it. 

New diseases are constantly being discovered in the human 
race. The same fact has astounded orehardists and gardeners; 
the old experts among them state that they can remember when 
there were not half as many fruit and flower pests and diseases 
as there are to-day. This increase is due to the discovery and 
development of many new varieties and more sensitive qualities 
which invite new enemies. Humanity is not confining itself to 
the simple foods that it once depended upon. The sea-scaven¬ 
gers, such as lobsters, crabs, terrapin, and the like, are but one 
example of the more general use of different foods from what 
was employed in the olden times; and dead tissue varies its 
character with the kind of food that is taken into the body. 

LAW:— Proper habits of life will prevent the develop¬ 
ment of poisons within the body. 

Buie 33. —The first habit is that which selects true food for 
the diet. 

Buie 34. —The second habit is that which limits the daily quan¬ 
tity of food to the actual needs of the body. 

Buie 35. —The third habit is that which carries off the tissue 
as fast as it breaks down. 

Buie 36. —As there can be left in the body no cause for the 
generating of poison, disease is impossible if the habits are 
correct. 

No matter how much you may expose yourself to the dangers 
of contagion you will be wholly safe, wholly immune, and there 
is no power that can bring sickness to you under these 
circumstances. 


Nature’s Doctors 


75 


LAW:— Every disease has two causes. 

Buie 37 .—The first cause of disease, known as the basis, is 
the presence in the body of dead tissue, or cells that have broken 
down and become poisons. 

Rule 38 .—The second cause of disease is the attack made by 
special germs that are created to destroy and remove the dead 
tissue. 

When these germs do not perform this duty there is great 
danger of paralysis; and infant paralysis has its origin right 
here. Other maladies arise in place of paralysis ; such as nerv¬ 
ous prostration which is a slow form of paralysis; or other 
nervous distempers. This means that if you fill your body with 
dead tissue, and avoid contact with disease through the germs 
that come to save you if possible, you are likely to suffer from 
something more horrible. 

Buie 39 .—Food that is foreign to the needs of the body is 
the second enemy of life. 

Some day, when civilization has risen one notch higher in in¬ 
telligence, humanity will cease eating things that are not useful 
in building the body. There are fourteen things needed, not 
fifteen; yet people eat scores of things that can never become 
blood. On what principle a man will eat oxalic acid, when the 
blood rebels against it, is not known except that this is not an 
era of intelligent civilization. The same criticism applies to 
many other things that cause misery and suffering, and still 
are eaten. 

LAW:— Things that are wholesome in one form may 
become violent poisons in another form. 

People often wonder why one kind of food will hurt them 
when it is composed of the very best things that nature offers 
for human food. The answer to the query is found in the basic 
law that is taught in philosophy, which points out the process 
whereby all elements were derived from a single form of mat¬ 
ter; that what is poison such as arsenic, lead, prussic acid, car¬ 
bolic acid, and all else, are merely combinations of the same 
simple and innocent first atom. So elements were made. 

But elements, by special arrangement of their proportions, 
change from good foods to instant poisons. Oxygen is the most 


76 


Complete Life Building 

needed of all the elements. Carbon is the first great food. The 
two together are very helpful, unless they unite in the propor¬ 
tion of one-third carbon and two-thirds oxygen, in a chemical 
sense. They then become humanity’s bitter and relentless foe. 

With what eyes of wonderment chemists have looked at the 
two most valuable parts: of human food, oxygen and carbon, 
and beheld their lurking dangers as they combine in this deadly 
manner, yet see their benefits to life in other combinations! 
The same law holds true in countless things that are useful to 
the health; their usefulness changing to danger when united in 
different ways. 

LAW: Foods that do not digest together generate a 
deadly poison in the body. 

Rule 40. —Carbon poison is the third enemy of life. 

Rule 41.— While foods that are not salivated at the mouth 
set up poisoning in the stomach, the greater danger comes from 
foods that do not digest together after they reach the stomach. 

This is undoubtedly the most important of all the rules that 
have thus far been given in this work. It is, of course, true that 
the accumulation of dead cells all through the body must of 
necessity invite some form of disease, and there is generally 
more opportunity for escape from a fatal termination of an 
attack. On the other hand, when poison is generated in the 
stomach, it brings a pressure on the heart that instantly stops 
its action, snuffing out in a few minutes lives that are wholly 
free from disease. Three strong, healthy men in one family 
died in one year from eating meals that contained food that 
could only be digested at different periods of time, thereby set¬ 
ting up this deadly poison. These attacks come by thousands. 
In a town of small population we know of eighteen such deaths 
in three years. Doctors call it acute indigestion. Many escape 
by a close call. 

Rule 42. —Every food has its digestive time. 

Rule 43.— The stomach will not begin to act upon a class of 
food until it has completed the digestion of the class that pre¬ 
cedes it in point of digestive time. 

This seems like a complicated rule as it is first read, but the 
meaning is clear. Take for example a meal in which there are 
rice and chicken. Distress either blind or acute will follow; and, 


Nature’s Doctors 


77 


whether felt or not in a direct way, great nervousness and flatu¬ 
lence attend the stomach and organs for hours. Yet if the meal 
consisted wholly of chicken it would have been digested without 
trouble; or, if it consisted wholly of rice, the result would have 
been the same. 

While we do not advise it, except as an experiment, a man 
could sit down to a chicken dinner and eat nothing but chicken, 
well cooked and seasoned, and never feel distress from it, pro¬ 
vided his system were in good condition at the time. Such an 
experiment has been made quite often. 

Under the LAW, the eating of both rice and chicken at the 
same meal will result in the formation of poison in the stomach. 
Let us see why. In the first place they do not digest together. 
Under Rule 43, it is stated that the stomach will not begin to act 
on one class of food while another is being digested; it will com¬ 
plete one class first. This fact is one of the most important in 
the whole study of health. It was never known until recently. 

It has always been taught that some foods digest easier and 
more quickly than others; but it was supposed that foods of 
slow digestion were carried along with foods of quick digestion, 
both side by side and were acted upon together, the slow class 
coming out of the stomach at a later period of time. Since 
surgery and other tests have brought the facts to light, exactly 
as they exist, it is now known that the gastric juice will act only 
on the class of food that is most easily digested, and the other 
class will be compelled to wait. While waiting the danger 
occurs. 

Rule 44 .—Foods that remain in the stomach when not acted 
upon by the gastric juice, quickly generate poison. 

Such foods are said to stagnate. They take on this dangerous 
condition when there is no gastric juice in the stomach, as when 
the mouth does not salivate' food or the palate is not pleased; 
and this stagnation will occur even when the food is all of one 
class. 

But, assuming that the food is salivated and the palate 
pleased, the more serious danger arises when two different classes 
of food are allowed to enter the stomach at the same meal. We 
may take the simple case of rice and chicken, although there are 
hundreds of others that teach the same lesson. Some years ago 
a man asked us why he always had distress after eating rice with 


78 


Complete Life Building 

chicken when rice alone, or chicken without rice, never hurt 
him. The answer was plain. The rice was acted on by the stom¬ 
ach in less than an hour, while the chicken had to wait in the 
stomach until the rice had passed out. But the stomach carries 
on quick decay when its contents are not being acted on by the 
gastric juice. It was like eating chicken that had spoiled be¬ 
fore it was swallowed. 

Food rots in the stomach. 

The only prevention of rotting is digestion j and if digestion is 
held up there is no other course than to rot; and this means the 
formation of the deadly poison. 

LAW: —All foods belong to some digestive time class. 

Rule 45. —The shortest time in which foods may be digested 
is known as the FIVE MINUTE PERIOD; and the following 
foods, or their equivalent, are included in the 

FIVE MINUTE CLASS 

1. White of raw egg; passes into the blood without digestion. 

2. Yolk of raw egg. 

3. Beef juice. 

4. Clear soup, or bouillon. 

5. Butter. 

6. Sugar. 

7. Honey free from comb. 

The great advantage of the foods of the FIVE MINUTE 
CLASS is in the fact that they may be combined with the foods 
of almost any other class; for they digest so easily that they do 
not delay materially the action of the stomach on the foods that 
require more time. They are out of the way before ferment can 
be started among the others; whereas, in the case of foods of the 
longer periods, time enough elapses to set up the poison that 
destroys the health. 

Rule 46. —The second time class of foods is known as those of 
the ONE HOUR PERIOD; and the following foods are included 
therein. Owing to their great number, and to assist in finding - 
them, they are presented in alphabetical order. 


Nature’s Doctors 79 

ONE HOUR CLASS 

All the following foods are digested in ONE HOUR or less: 

1. Almonds, roasted, and ground into fine meal. 

2. Apples, sweet or mild, when perfectly ripe and mellow. 

3. Arrowroot well cooked. 

4. Asparagus, avoiding the fibrous parts. 

5. Barley, well cooked; only the pearl barley is good. 

6. Beef; if lean and cooked rare. 

7. Beets, if new and tender. Avoid all vegetable fibers. 

8. Bread, when not new. The whiter the flour the less value 
it has. 

9. Buttermilk; it digests in twenty minutes or less. It is 
the best medical food in the world, as it makes new blood quickly 
and repairs diseased organs. 

10. Buttered toast, if buttered just at time of eating. 

11. Cake, when old and plain. 

12. Celery, either raw or cooked. 

13. Cherries, when perfectly ripe, mellow and sweet. 

14. Chestnuts, boiled and eaten hot. 

15. Chicken broth. 

16. Chocolate, if absolutely pure, which is rare. 

17. Cocoa, if pure. 

18. Com; green corn is meant; but it must be thoroughly 
chewed. 

19. Corn meal; if cooked three hours or more. 

20. Corn starch. 

21. Crackers of the bready kind; not crisp crackers. 

22. Cream. 

23. Cream cheese, when home-made. 

24. Dates. Sterilize them by steaming twenty minutes. 

25. Double-bake bread; bread sliced, and baked in oven again. 

26. Egg yolks; cooked yolks only, either hard or soft. 

27. Figs. Sterilize them by steaming twenty minutes. 

28. Flour from whole wheat, with bran removed. 

29. Hominy; if cooked three hours. 

30. Junket; generally twenty minutes or less. 

31. Lamb; if young and not cooked hard. 

32. Lettuce. 

33. Maple sugar and syrup. 


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34. Macaroni. 

35. Milk toast. 

36. Milk; condensed, raw, or cooked; the raw being the best. 

37. Moss; Iceland, Irish, or sea moss. 

38. Old bread, white or whole wheat. 

39. Olives. 

40. Onions, if boiled. 

41. Oysters; raw, or stewed; not fried. 

42. Peas; if green, young and tender. 

43. Prunes; if well cooked. 

44. Potatoes; white; if baked and mealy. 

45. Potatoes; white; boiled and mealy. 

46. Potatoes; mashed; if made from mealy boiled white kind. 

47. Raisins, raw or cooked. 

48. Natural rice if cooked so as to be light and feathery. 
White rice is not half as nutritive as “natural rice.” 

49. Sago. 

50. Spinach in milk or cream. 

51. Squash. 

52. Tapioca. Avoid pearl tapioca. 

53. Vermicelli. 

Here are fifty-three different articles or kinds of food that are 
digested completely by the stomach in one hour or less. Slight 
variations will change the time of digestibility; as, for instance, 
if apples are not so mellow that they naturally burst their tiny 
fruit-cells, they require several hours to be digested, and but a 
small part of the apple can then be fully acted on by the stomach. 

In the case of beets, age makes a great difference, for the fibre 
in the beet becomes tough. 

There is no form of barley now that is useful as food, unless 
the broth made in Scotland be taken as an example, except what 
is called pearl barley. That is the starch center of the barley 
berry, and is very easily digested, and is nutritious, although 
an unbalanced food like white-bread. 

Beef becomes harder to digest in proportion as it is cooked. 
It is at its best as food when merely heated through by a very 
hot fire. The outer edge may require four or five hours to 
digest while the interior will digest in much less than an hour. 

Buttermilk is usually digested in less than twenty minutes. 

Chocolate is not obtained in a pure state. One test of im- 


Nature’s Doctors 


81 


purity is to place it in a closed drawer for a day or two; then 
open the drawer slightly and notice the odor; if it is a bit dis¬ 
agreeable, bitter, or peculiar, the chocolate is “made,” and is 
not natural. Some kinds are built of earth, some of ochre cql- 
ored with black walnut juice which is a poison, and some of 
anything that will pass as a close imitation when sweetened. 
Three hundred samples were sent to us from as many different 
places and all were rank adulterations. Cocoa is likewise imi¬ 
tated, but not to the extent of chocolate. 

Cocoa-shells are pure and make a valuable drink with milk. 

Cake can be made in a way that it can be eaten in the place 
of bread, and be as safe and wholesome. 

Dates, figs and raisins possess, pound for pound, twenty times 
as much meat value as beef or other flesh. In countries where 
dates, figs and raisins are eaten freely, no meat is desired or 
required, and there was never a case of appendicitis or stomach 
trouble; and rheumatism is wholly unknown. 

Old bread made from white flour is digested in less than an 
hour; but new bread requires more time, as it generates carbon 
poison, and is in fact raised by carbon gas from yeast or baking 
powder. 

Junket is useful only for a very delicate stomach, as is moss; 
both being easily absorbed in a very short time and yielding but 
slight food value. 

Potatoes that are soggy are hurtful; they should be cooked in 
a way that will keep them mealy and light. Green skin potatoes 
are a poison. 

Pearl tapioca is made from waxy and old potatoes, and is 
merely an imitation of tapioca. 

More will be said upon food values as we progress. 

A FEW CAUTIONS ABOUT THE USE OF ONE HOUR 

FOODS 

1. While these many foods will digest in one hour or less, it 
is not true that they will mix well under all conditions. 

2. It is a safe general rule that juicy fruits will not mix with 
any other foods, except milk. Apples, cherries and olives should 
be eaten a full hour before any other thing enters the stomach; 
but baked sweet apples, if very ripe and mellow before they are 


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baked, blend well with milk, and for persons of sedentary habits 
this combination makes an ideal breakfast every alternate morn¬ 
ing. All other native juicy fruits should be eaten a full hour 
before any meal. 

3. The food-fruits, like dates, figs and raisins, mix well with 
all the one hour foods, excepting, in some instances, meats and 
vegetables. 

4. Meats and green vegetables go well together; and this com¬ 
bination is to be preferred. Vegetables and the regular foods, 
like bread and cereals, do not blend perfectly. 

5. Any person suffering from congestion of the stomach or 
digestive organs will not easily digest milk. Old people, for 
this reason, believe that milk hurts them; but, as soon as the 
congestion is removed, the conditions favor the use of milk. 

6. The best combinations of the ONE HOUR FOODS are as 
follows: 

Any product of any cereal with any other product of any 
cereal, as bread, com meal, hominy, macaroni, pearl barley, 
arrowroot, coarse tapioca, corn starch, almonds, chestnuts, pota¬ 
toes, and all starchy foods in the one hour class. 

Dates, figs and raisins are best when eaten with any of the 
foregoing cereal foods, except potatoes. 

Asparagus, beets, celery, lettuce, spinach, squash and onions 
are best when eaten at the same meal with soups, broths and 
meats; excluding all other foods at the same meal. In summer 
time, if you wish to keep the blood cool, you may make a meal 
occasionally of the foregoing vegetables alone, omitting the 
meats. This has been done frequently with great success. As 
it is an unbalanced diet, it should not be used often, as neuralgia 
will follow. 

CAUTION as to FRUITS.—Remember that the best of ap¬ 
ples, oranges, bananas and other juice fruits will generally in¬ 
crease the inflammation of a congested system, and set up uric 
acid poisons in the body. To a person in good health, these 
fruits would prove a blessing; but they cannot be assimilated by 
a congested system. NEURALGIA is the first indication that 
fruits are setting up dangerous conditions. Then RHEUMA¬ 
TISM may follow. HEADACHES can often be traced to the 
eating of fruits. Study these things constantly. Find out what 
hurts you and what helps you. 


Nature’s Doctors 83 

Rule 47. —The next class of foods are called those of the TWO 
HOUR PERIOD; and the following are included therein: 

TWO HOUR CLASS 

1. Artichoke. 

2. Beans, when green and tender. 

3. Buckwheat. 

4. Bread that is new. 

5. Capon. 

6. Chicken. 

7. Carrots. 

8. Codfish. 

9. Carp. 

10. Cream cheese; meaning the factory kind. 

11. Graham-flour bread. 

12. Haddock. 

13. Halibut. 

14. Herring, fresh. 

15. Lentils. 

16. Mackerel, fresh. 

17. Nuts; including herein only filberts, pistachio, pigno.,a 
and hazel-nuts. 

18. Oatmeal. 

19. Oat groats. 

20. Oysters, fancy roast. 

21. Pancakes. 

22. Parsnips. 

23. Pigeon, young. 

24. Potatoes, not too new; meaning young white potatoes. 

25. Rye. 

26. Smelt. 

27. Sole. 

28. Salsify. 

29. Tomatoes. 

30. Trout. 

31. Turbot. 

32. Turkey. 

33. Veal. 

Here are thirty-three different foods that are digested in about 
two hours. They belong to the TWO HOUR PERIOD. Not 


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Complete Life Building 

all of them are perfect food; but, being in use, we have included 
them, as some people can eat all kinds without harm. 

Those people who suffer from rheumatism must let tomatoes 
alone, as oxalic acid is very abundant in them and quickly sets 
up this painful disease; as will also pieplant, rhubarb, or any 
fruit that is acid, cranberries, pickles, vinegar, and similar 
articles. 

In the use of fish it is important that it be fresh, and per¬ 
fectly so, for the least taint is likely to set up ptomain poisoning 
which comes so quickly and with such deadly effect that there 
is no time to fight for life. Thousands die every year of this 
poisoning, and chiefly from eating fish, sea food, or meats that 
are not in the best condition. Yeal is also a problem; if taken 
from very young calves it is never good food; and if not kept 
fresh it very speedily becomes a poison. 

Oysters when raw and clean are good food for some persons; 
but cooking them changes their value, especially if they are 
cooked enough to coagulate them. When fried they are very 
hard to digest and set up trouble. 

HOME MADE JELLIES, canned fruits and dried fruits be¬ 
long to the two hour class unless they are products of fruit that 
was not fully ripe when put up, in which case they are not 
good to eat as food. All fruit, however, even if good, must be 
used subject to the CAUTION given under the ONE HOUR 
CLASS of foods in this section. 

Buie 48 .—Foods that require THREE HOURS TO DIGEST 
are referred to as belonging to the THREE HOUR PERIOD. 
The following are included: 

THREE HOUR CLASS 

1. Beef, crisp lean, and all fat. 

2. Beets, if old. 

3. Cauliflower. 

4. Cabbage. 

5. Corn, canned. 

6. Flounder. 

7. Ham, boiled. 

8. Herring, salted or smoked. 

9. Liver. 


Nature’s Doctors 


85 


10. Lobster. 

11. Mutton. 

12. Nuts ; but including only pecans and hickory nuts. 

13. Oyster plant. 

14. Peas, dried, or split. 

15. Potatoes, sweet, and yams; not white potatoes. 

16. Salmon. 

17. Spinach cooked with fat meat. 

18. Yenison. 

Here are eighteen articles of food that belong to the THREE 
HOUR PERIOD. Some of them are not suitable to the best 
health, and all of them require a patient and strong stomach to 
digest them. They do not build new body tissue very fast, and 
it is supposed that they tax the vitality in the effort to digest 
them. On the other hand, they serve to give staying power to 
a person who is to work hard and long and who wishes to have 
food in his stomach as long as possible. 

They sometimes set up poisons in the blood and organs. 

If you take junket, it digests so quickly and easily that it has 
no staying power; and in about half an hour you will be very 
hungry again. If you eat foods of the three hour period, you 
will not suffer from a long absence of food from the stomach, 
and this will be an advantage to a strong person who has hard 
work to do. 


Rule 49 .—Foods that require FOUR HOURS TO DIGEST 
are referred to as belonging to the FOUR HOUR PERIOD. 
They include the following familiar articles of diet: 

FOUR HOUR CLASS 

1. Bacon. 

2. Brown bread. 

3. Beans that are old, including baked beans. 

4. Crabs. 

5. Ducks. 

6. Doughnuts; also crullers and fried pies and fritters. 

7. Lard. 

8. Meats, cooked hard; also re-cooked meats; also pork. 

9. Oysters, fried. 



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Complete Life Building 

10. Onions, fried. 

11. Peanuts and English walnuts. 

12. Potatoes, fried hard, but not chips. 

13. Turnips, and old or woody vegetables. 

The four hour class looks formidable, and it is a terror to 
many stomachs. It slays its thousands every year, or rather 
every week, which is nearer the truth. Still there are some 
people who can keep fairly well for some years and eat these 
things. 

Rule 50. —Foods that require FIVE HOURS to digest are re¬ 
ferred to as belonging to the FIVE HOUR PERIOD. They in¬ 
clude the following well known articles: 

FIVE HOUR CLASS 

1. Barley bread and whole barley. 

2. Cheese ; meaning the ordinary American and foreign kinds. 

3. Clams. 

4. Eggs, fried. 

5. Ham, fried. 

6. Nuts that are very oily. 

7. Pork, cooked crisp. 

8. Goose. 

9. Saratoga chips; or thin fried potatoes, if crisp. 

10. Pastry, piecrust and patties. 

11. Shrimps. 

12. Suet. 

13. Mincemeat. 

14. Fruit puddings and fruit cakes. 

15. Rich sauces, dressings and gravies. 

NUTS: CAUTION: For chestnuts and almonds, see the 
ONE HOUR CLASS. Other NUTS are mentioned in the other 
classes. Peanuts and peanut butter, although having some food 
value, cause congestion of the stomach and hurt the liver. The 
oily nuts, like black walnuts, cream nuts, Brazil nuts, etc., are 
unfit for food, although having value in case of starvation. 

Rule 51. Foods, or so-called foods, and other things that are 
eaten, that pass through the system unchanged by the process of 
digestion, are referred to as belonging to the NEVER PERIOD, 
and they include the following among many others: 


Nature’s Doctors 


87 


THE NEVER CLASS 

1. Apples, when not mellowed by nature ; either raw or 
cooked. 

2. Bran, whether in graham flour or otherwise. 

3. Cranberries in any form. 

4. Catsup. 

5. Cocoanut, raw or cooked. 

6. Cucumbers, radishes and the like. 

7. Currants, dried. 

8. Crisp parts of meat, pastry and potatoes where nothing is 
left but the crisp portion. 

9. Gelatine. 

10. Hulls, as the outer layers of cereals. 

11. Peppers, also black pepper and red pepper. 

12. Pickles, and all pickled goods. 

13. Radishes. 

14. Rind of lemon. 

15. Rind of orange. 

16. Spices of all kinds. 

17. Tendons, muscles and cartilage that are ground fine in 
sausages. 

18. Unripe parts of fruit. 

19. Various ingredients that are included in French and other 
foreign cooking. 

The members of the 4 ‘NEVER CLASS” may go through the 
body and do no direct harm at times, depending on the condi¬ 
tions met with. If there is vitality present, and no serious 
amount of taint, cucumbers, radishes, pickles, and similar in¬ 
digestible articles may merely force their way through and 
bring no danger; but the same person on some other day with 
slightly different conditions of the body, may be killed by any 
one of these things. Radishes have slain many strong, healthy 
men and women; yet ordinarily they are safe, but never useful. 

Apples, when each fruit cell within is not ripened and burst 
open by natural mellowing, bring rheumatism, neuralgia, in¬ 
digestion and other distempers to the body; yet, on the other 
hand, when nature has burst the tiny fruit cells and released 


88 


Complete Life Building 

the juices, apples are the most advantageous of all the distilled 
fruits in nature. Cooking will not aid nature in opening the 
cells; the ripening process must take place itself. 

Bran is the outer hull of wheat. It is often ground into what 
is called graham flour; and its sharpness and indigestibility 
killed the man who invented it, and after whom it was named. 
There is always good lurking between two extremes. Whole 
wheat flour without the bran is the one greatest food in the 
world; yet, with the bran it is dangerous. For this reason all 
persons should avoid breakfast foods, as they are made from 
mill sweepings of bran and other coarse stuff ground fine, but 
still as sharp as needle points against the stomach and intes¬ 
tines. Fine grinding makes them sharper and more dangerous. 

Cranberries themselves are wholly indigestible; but they have 
some value because of the sugar that is cooked with them; still 
they set up rheumatic conditions in the blood, like any sour fruit. 

Catsup, relishes, chowchow, spices, and the long train of un¬ 
natural things that are used to stimulate a false appetite in a 
morbid stomach, are useless from every standpoint, and some¬ 
times lead quickly on to appendicitis, as they inflame the intes¬ 
tines and destroy its membrane. The stomach when healthy is 
a healthy animal; and no healthy animal will eat these strange 
things that human ingenuity, working in a bad cause, has 
concocted. 

Currants, if made from small grapes, would be very useful; 
but those that are known as the Corinth berry, and that come 
from that locality, after being dried and sweetened, or in their 
natural state, are poisons, and pass through the human body 
unchanged. They lack value, and are also a source of danger. 
On the other hand, raisins that come from grapes, such as are 
used everywhere, are very valuable. Dried currants do much 
harm to the stomach, while raisins do much good. You can find 
many black varieties of berries on plants, even in this country, 
which could be made into currants; and would pass for the usual 
dried currants; but, being poisonous on the plants before they 
are picked, they are equally poisonous afterwards. 

Gelatine formerly had food value, although but slight. Today 
the glue-made gelatine will not mix with the gastric juice of the 
stomach, and it often remains for a day or more in that organ. 

Orange and lemon rind enter largely into modern cooking; 


Nature’s Doctors 89 

but they are useless and dangerous. They increase the doctor’s 
bid. 

Sausages are made from everything that cannot be served or 
sold in any other way. Being ground fine, they look all right; 
and, being nicely flavored, they taste wonderfully good; but it 
is the after reckoning that must furnish food for reflection. If 
you will take a few pounds of sawdust, fry it to a crisp in the 
pan, season it well, and eat it with sugar and milk, or with 
cream, you will pronounce the food-imitation a success if you 
do not know from what it is made. You can take straw, corn 
stalks, and dried splinters, make them crisp by proper cooking, 
and sell them for a new breakfast food, costing you about a cent 
a hundred boxes, outside of the labor, and selling for ten dollars 
a hundred boxes, and you will have in your grasp a modern 
form of enterprise that out-sellers Sellers, for there’s millions 
in it. 

Rule 52 .—Adulterations constitute the fourth enemy of life. 

These might be said to come under Rule 39 which says that 
food that is foreign to the body is the second enemy; but there 
is a difference between foreign food and adulterated food. The 
body requires fourteen different kinds of elements, and these are 
all found in a single food such as whole wheat flour with the 
bran removed, or eggs, or milk, or beef that has been lightly 
cooked, any one of which will maintain life indefinitely. The 
fourteen needs are also found in combinations of two or more 
kinds of food; while, in some cases, it may be necessary for a 
person to eat several kinds in order to secure nutrition for the 
body. The whole object of eating is to furnish the system with 
these fourteen needed elements. 

If only thirteen are eaten, sickness will follow. 

If fifteen are eaten, then the extra element is foreign to the 
body, and must be driven off and out at the expense of loss of 
vitality and often of health. Now, as a matter of fact, people 
eat many more than the needed fourteen elements; for they do 
not know what is food and what is not food, except in the sim¬ 
plest forms. For this very reason, this book is a necessity in 
every house at the present day, as will be seen. 

In addition to the foreign material present in badly selected 
foods, the manufacturers of preparations called foods, add imi- 


90 Complete Life Building 

tations that are actual poisons. On the one hand we see that 
dried currants which are eaten as food, contain material that is 
foreign to the body. We also find in tomatoes a large propor¬ 
tion of oxalic acid which is foreign to the body. These are but 
two samples of foods that contain matter that the system is 
compelled to throw off in order to free itself from danger. 
Coffee and tea both contain such extra matter. Now all these 
things can remain pure and yet do harm because they contain 
foreign elements. But when tea and coffee are adulterated, the 
dangers increase. 

Chocolate is the worst adulterated article on the market to¬ 
day. It is almost impossible to obtain it in a pure state, al¬ 
though those who make it and those who sell it, are ready to 
swear it is pure. 

Next to chocolate comes baking powder; this alone is the 
cause of more organic disease than any other thing, for all peo¬ 
ple make bread and cake from baking powder. The claims of 
purity are strong, but the facts belie these claims. 

Candies are adulterated from the simple white kinds to the 
more elaborate sorts; the sugar from which they are made is 
not pure; and 44 mineral sugar,” called saccharine, is added to 
white clay to give the needed sweetness. A little of this “min¬ 
eral sugar” will not do harm, and is useful in case of diabetes; 
but its continued use, and presence in large quantities, as in 
most candies and syrups, soon weakens the body, for it is for¬ 
eign to human life and cannot ^nter into the making of tissue. 
Coloring matter is also present in candies and fruit syrups, in 
many poisonous forms. 

Fruit syrups, fruit juices, soda-fountain drinks, canned 
goods, and preserves of all kinds, are adulterated to-day to an 
extent that makes them distinct dangers of a most grave char¬ 
acter. They should be avoided. The same is true of most ice 
creams; but not all. 

White flour besides being chemically “bleached” is given 
weight by the addition of finely powdered white earth in which 
alum is liberally distributed to make it bake readily. This is 
the most serious menace of the present day, as bread is the staff 
of life, so-called. 

Drugs and medicines are so much adulterated that they have 
lost their efficiency to a great extent, which may be a blessing 


Nature’s Doctors 


91 


in disguise. Beers contain, as shown by actual analysis, as 
many as 123 adulterants, culminating in arsenic and other vio¬ 
lent poisons that kill slowly. Kidney diseases are sure to follow. 
Out of over two thousand deaths from Bright’s disease, where 
the malady came on without warning and was at the incurable 
stage when discovered, all but three were directly due to beer 
and liquor drinking; and in the three cases the victims were 
users of canned goods to a large extent. Wines and liquors 
to-day are hopelessly adulterated; and yet those who offer them 
for sale are ready to make any kind of oath that they are strictly 
pure. Cigarettes, and even the wrappers or papers in which 
they are made, and which can be bought separately, are treated 
to a habit-forming drug that makes a slave of the user; some 
of the worst “fiends” having been started in their downward 
course by this snare. 

The eternal desire to make money by weakening and ruining 
the human race is so dominant to-day that there seems to be little 
chance of saving the next generation. Legislation is not easily 
secured; prosecutions are not pushed with sincerity; juries are 
the weakest part of the whole American system; and punishment 
rarely follows. For every criminal who is checked in this deluge 
of murder, a hundred others rise to take his place. The ac¬ 
quittal of the beef trust shows how little can be expected from 
American juries. 

Buie 53 .—Preservatives constitute the fifth enemy of life. 

In addition to the floods of adulterations that enter into al¬ 
most everything that is intended for the human stomach, there 
are scores of different kinds of chemicals that are added to 
meats, foods, drinks, and other things, in order to keep them 
from decay, in the first instance; and in order to make decayed 
goods salable in the second instance. 

Thus if rotten tomatoes are to be canned, or put into catsup, 
they are sweetened by benzoate of soda. This chemical is not a 
dangerous poison; but its continued use breaks down tissue in 
the body. 

Rule 54 .—Whatever will destroy the germs of decay in food, 
will destroy the life-making cells in the human body. 

By tests made by the United States Government in order to 
please adulterators and preservative-users, it was found that ben- 


92 


Complete Life Building 

zoate of soda will not kill a man, nor will it make him sick, 
unless used in too great proportion; but it will stop the forma¬ 
tion of life-building tissue, without which he cannot build a 
vigorous body, nor repair the waste and loss that occur in daily 
life. 

A preservative is a chemical poison, having a slow and steady 
power to check growth of decay in foods, and likewise to check 
growth of tissue in the body; for tissue grows on the same prin¬ 
ciple that decay thrives; both having the same original cell as 
the basis of development. 

All meats are embalmed; all canned goods are subjected to 
similar treatment; most package goods are likewise “saved”; 
and there is a never-ending flow of foreign material into the 
things that humanity must eat. If you could go into any fruit¬ 
canning establishment and witness what is going on, you could 
never again eat such fruits. Women who work in tomato can¬ 
ning factories are always cured for life from eating canned 
tomatoes. In factories where corn, beans and other things are 
canned, there is the sickening stench of partly rotten foods; 
and these foods would be rejected were it not for the fact that 
benzoate of soda is used to cover up the decay. In the absence 
of that chemical, the goods would “speak for themselves,” and 
the factories would be compelled to use only fresh foods, or to 
better look after those in hand. 

In summing up this section of the present book, we will review 

THE FIVE ENEMIES OF HUMAN LIFE 

1. Dead Tissue within the Body. (Rule 29.) 

2. Food that is Foreign to the Body. (Rule 39.) 

3. Carbon Poison from Indigestion. (Rule 40.) 

4. Adulterations. (Rule 52.) 

5. Preservatives. (Rule 53.) 


SEVENTH SECTION 


FACTS ABOUT FOOD 


S LL THE LAWS AND RULES set forth in this book 
are the result of vast numbers of experiments and 
tests made under all conditions and for all classes of 
people and all states of health. They keep on prov¬ 
ing their reliability the more they are tried, and they 
do not at any time show error or inaccuracy. They are the only 
complete sets of rules and laws of health that can be found to¬ 
day that furnish a safe guide to follow. 

Do not allow yourself to be caught by the theory of some so- 
called “expert”; especially a physician who calls himself an 
“expert on foods”; for there are no medical food experts living 
to-day whose teachings are an all-round guide to the public. 
They have their fads, and push them at any cost to violent ex¬ 
tremes. The Ralston Health Club has no fads, and is world¬ 
wide in its influence for doing good. It seeks the plain facts, and 
the living truths; nothing else. 

Learn to exercise your good native common sense. 

Some people believe one thing to-day, and to-morrow they 
are completely turned around, as some other belief has captured 
them. Such people must either develop a mental backbone, or 
else stop reading and listening; they are straws that are blown 
about by every gust no matter how slight. They swallow all 
they hear and read, and can be made to believe that the sun 

sets in the east or rises in the west. 

93 














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Complete Life Building 

Do not join the ranks of * 1 easy believers’’ in every notion 
that you read or hear. 

Some doctors seek popularity by telling their patients to eat 
what they want, when they want, and as much as they want. 

That kind of advice pleases the patients, and so the doctors 
gain the good opinion of their patrons. 

That kind of advice increases sickness, and so adds a new 
source of income to the doctors. 

“ What’s the use?” asks a well-known physician. “I have 
been trying to tell my patients that all diseases have their be¬ 
ginnings in wrong habits of eating, and I am not so popular as 
I would be if I told them to eat what they like. In any event 
they will eat what they like, so what’s the use of telling them 
the truth?” 

In a great medical convention recently held in this country, 
the question was put, What proportion of the people are free 
from stomach trouble? The medical men knew what they were 
talking about because they came from the midst of their own 
patients from all over the land; and it was the final opinion 
that ninety-five men and women in every hundred were victims 
of errors in eating; or, in other words, in the United States 
alone, there are nearly ninety-five million sufferers from stomach 
troubles. 

Yet medical “experts” tell the people to eat what they want, 
as much as they want, and when they want it, regardless of 
every rule of life and law of common sense. 

The true physicians do not give this vicious advice. 

YOUR family physician is honest. 

He will tell you that all sickness, all maladies, all diseases, 
begin in wrong food selection, or in wrong methods of eating; 
no matter what direct cause may spring the trap. The house 
that is rotted in its foundations may not topple over until the 
wind strikes it, or the rains undermine it, or its own weight 
crushes it; but the first cause is in the house itself. Had such 
first cause not existed, the outside agencies could not have 
wrecked it. So the human body is a temple, the material of 
which may be sound or unsound, if sound, no disease can harm 
it; if unsound, it becomes prey to every approaching danger, 
and the enemy that first seizes it generally controls its condition. 


Nature’s Doctors 


95 


In the last ten years doctors have increased, diseases have in¬ 
creased, surgeons have increased, operations have increased,— 
all, all ten times faster than the population has increased. Dur¬ 
ing this period, the people have been more and more reckless in 
their habits of eating; and every honest doctor who is not afraid 
to speak the truth states frankly that the fearful increase in 
sickness is due to the errors of eating. 

Buie 55 .—The human body cannot be anything else than what 
it eats. 

When you build a house, you put certain material in it; and 
the house is the result of what enters into its construction. You 
cannot build of mud-blocks and expect a marble mansion. The 
same fact is true of the human body: it is the result of the mate¬ 
rial that enters into its construction. Exactly what goes in at 
the stomach comes forth in the character of the flesh and bones. 

Buie 56 .—The person who is swayed by the reckless statements 
of self-styled experts on food will always be at sea in a rudder¬ 
less boat. 

If you have faith in the rules and laws of this book, cling to 
them against the wild contradictions of doctors who seek fame 
and money by their sensational claims and opinions. A great 
doctor recently said: “Eat a heavy meal just before going to 
bed every night.” The next day another great doctor said, “If 
you eat a heavy meal just before going to bed at night, you will 
have sallow faces, dead eyes, and great hollows under them. ’ ’ 

You should sail in a boat that has a destination, that is con¬ 
trolled in its direction by a rudder, and that proceeds on its 
course in a way that commands the confidence of those who are 
aboard. For this reason, you should accept the rules and laws 
of this book against all other opinions. Our whole work for a 
lifetime has been devoted to this ONE CAUSE, to know the 
facts on this ONE SUBJECT, and we have greater opportunity 
for ascertaining the full truth than any individual on earth. 
This statement is not made in a spirit of boasting; but with a 
desire to bring all thinking people into a realization of the dan¬ 
ger of following sensational leaders in so important a matter as 
the health and life of the body. 

The Second Life Enemy, as stated heretofore, refers to things 
that are called food, but that are not. In this place we will pre¬ 
sent a brief list of the more common: 


96 


Complete Life Building 

SO-CALLED FOODS THAT ARE NOT FOODS 

1. The foreign matter in all unripe fruits. 

2. All forms of TEA. Tea at all times is a poison. 

3. That part of COFFEE that is developed by too much 
boiling. The only safe part of coffee is that which is set free into 
the water in the first few minutes of boiling. 

4. Rinds of lemons and oranges. All cook books include 
many things that make use of such rinds. They are dangerous 
poisons. 

5. Bran, or the outer hull of wheat. Also the outer hull of 
rice, and other grains; the least hurtful being that of oats. 

6. Chocolate and cocoa contain much foreign matter. 

7. Tomatoes are not food. They also contain oxalic acid, a 
poison. 

8. Pieplant, or rhubarb, and other weeds that are eaten. 

9. Dried currants. They are poison berries, and not of the 
raisin class, which is always beneficial. 

10. Pearl tapioca. The regular tapioca is good food; the 
pearl is bad. 

11. Potatoes that have green skins. The sun has changed the 
character of the 4 ‘greened” potato. 

12. Potatoes that have grown waxy; they cease to be true 
food, as new chemical changes have been set up. 

13. The outer layers of ripe beans and ripe peas. 

14. Clams, lobsters, crabs, terrapin. 

15. Peppers and pepper; spices, cinnamon, ginger, citron and 
other things used in cooking. Ginger and black pepper used 
sparingly are not hurtful, although non-food in fact. 

16. Sweet potatoes and yams contain parts that are not food. 

17. Cranberries. Gooseberries. Native currants. Tart apples. 

18. Lard and crisp fats. 

19. Graphite used in making hotel gravies. 

20. Catsup. Chowchow. Pickles. Table sauces. Cucumbers. 

21. Radishes. Strawberries. Vinegar. 

22. Tendons and muscles in sausage. 

23. Viscera or entrails, sweetbreads, kidneys, brains, hearts 
and hoofs, including hoof-made gelatin, and gelatin made from 
glue elements. These things appear in sausage form, and in 


Nature’s Doctors 97 

gelatins; and should be avoided as the worst of enemies, for 
they contain the dead within the dead. 

24. Corn-stalk juice, such as is found to-day in glucose, syrups, 
candies and very largely in fruit juices, canned fruits, and the 
like. This stalk juice destroys the kidneys in time. 

25. Corn-stalks themselves. They are not food, but are found 
in many breakfast foods, and specialties, crisp or otherwise. 
Sawdust, by being disguised, is capable of being passed as break¬ 
fast food. 

26. Straw and coarse reeds, ground into breakfast foods and 
camouflaged by crisp cookery. 

27. Clay, white earth, lime, and similar minerals that are em¬ 
ployed in candy and bread making. Many people eat clay but 
it has no food value of any kind, and lowers the vitality. 

28. Foreign ingredients that enter largely into fancy cook¬ 
ing. Nearly all French and Oriental cooking is poisonous. 

29. Cocoanut is wholly indigestible. 

The list given shows what efforts are made to achieve variety 
in eating regardless of the question of what value the things 
are that enter into so many dishes. Nature shows that she uses 
fourteen elements in making and sustaining the human body; 
that she will not accept fifteen or more; for which reason, all 
elements in excess of the fourteen are certain to be rejected by 
the body. The process of rejection and ejection causes loss of 
vitality, in addition to keeping out the desired class of foods that 
are needed. More than this, the foreign matter sets up a false 
standard of relish, so that the taste of a person is perverted and 
wholesome things are scoffed at. Compare these so-called foods 
with those of the better lists, and make your selection. At the 
same time, do not think that all the non-foods are poisons. 
Tomatoes, which contain the basis of rheumatism, may be eaten 
for years without causing this malady in a person who is not 
subject to such trouble. Gooseberries are the national fruit of 
England where rheumatism flourishes, and there are people 
there and in America who can eat gooseberries for a long time 
without getting the gout or rheumatism. Yet tomatoes, goose¬ 
berries, pieplant, tart apples, native currants, vinegar and 
similar things of the sour class cause nearly all the rheumatism 
in the world. 

The enemies of life may be overcome by food selection. One 


98 Complete Life Building 

class of enemies includes the non-foods of the list just given 
herein. 

The two remaining classes are those that include adulterations 
and preservatives. These are so slyly put in things that you 
would be surprised to know how often you take these poisons in 
your system. Read again the accounts given under Rules 52 and 
53 in the earlier part of this book. You could prove your good 
citizenship by personally holding your law-makers responsible 
for two achievements: 

1. The discovery of adulterations and the use of preservatives 
in foods through legislative investigation. Insist that the law¬ 
makers who represent your district in your State and in Con¬ 
gress, fight for a law that will maintain chemical analyses of all 
things you wish examined, and without cost to the public, so 
that you may know what is safe to eat. 

2. The punishment by imprisonment of all persons who, 
through love of money, adulterate foods; and the punishment 
under the capital crimes law, of all persons who deliberately 
cause deaths by the use of poisons in food. One hundred thou¬ 
sand children died last year because food-makers sought to make 
money by adulterating the necessaries of life. 

See that your foods are constantly and honestly analyzed at 
public expense. 

See that your criminals are punished severely enough to check 
this evil. 


DRINKS 


The only natural drink is water. 

The ideal drink furnished by nature is rain water that has 
fallen into sandy earth, and there been filtered. Rain water 
is the distillation of the ordinary waters on the earth. Only 
the pure parts are made into rain; just as man distills water, 
and then filters it through sand; but man-made distillation is 
not aerated, or mixed with enough air after being distilled; and 
the sand is not of sufficient bulk to give full balance of water. 
Yet man has it in his power to accomplish these imitations of 
nature. 




Nature’s Doctors 9-9 

On the other hand, the usual DRINKS of humanity are as 
follows: 

1. Coffee. 

2. Tea. 

3. Chocolate. 

4. Cocoa. 

5. Bran Lemonade. 

6. Malted Milk. 

7. Buttermilk. 

Rule 57 .—Any drinks that contain alcohol prevent the food 
from making normal tissue. 

TEA is a direct poison. It is wholly foreign to the human 
body. It weakens every organ, and acts directly on the bladder, 
making it very difficult to retain the water there. Iced Tea, as 
the Chief Chemist of the United States Government stated, is 
“slow suicide.’’ Tea drinking undermines the brain forces, 
ruins the memory, causes loss of faculties long before age has 
come on, and makes a person desperately nervous, and subject 
to gloomy moods by night and day. Its end is paralysis. 

Rule 58 .—Malted Milk is a food of high value, made from con¬ 
densed milk and barley malt. 

COFFEE is not a food drink, but a pleasing stimulant, free 
from injury to persons whose hearts are strong, but dangerous 
to weak hearts. It contains a poison that is not brought into it 
until it has boiled for some minutes. To avoid this poison, the 
more experienced people make drip coffee by which the hot 
water drips through the ground berry. Then the percolating 
system is used as the next step between drip and boiled coffee. 
But where the coffee is allowed to boil for several minutes, the 
poison in it is set free and then the trouble begins. It stops 
digestion for an hour or more, adds to the danger of carbon 
poison, and does general harm to all the organs. 

SOME WOMEN keep the coffee pot on the stove and add 
water to the grounds from time to time, drinking from this 
wicked brew, and their husbands pay the doctors’ bills. 

SOME WOMEN are so ignorant that they even allow the tea¬ 
pot to stand on the stove all day long, adding water as needed, 
and sipping from the awful brew. If a million dollars were 
offered for a well woman who thus displayed this degree of 


100 


Complete Life Building 

ignorance unparalleled in modern times, they could not find one. 
Medicine bottles fill the back yard, and pill-boxes pile up in the 
house. In the first place, water that has been boiled for some 
time is a poison and the surest cause of old age. In the second 
place, tea and coffee are in themselves poisons, the only escape 
being in the quick cooking of coffee and the discarding of the 
grounds at once. In the third place, there are no saving merits 
to tea; it is bad first, last and always. Coffee is good in its early 
boiling only; after that it is one of the worst enemies of the 
health. 

The other drinks have been discussed in the earlier pages of 
this book. Bran Lemonade is a brain-refresher and nerve- 
builder, and may be flavored by grape juice, currant juice, 
peach juice, or blackberry juice, always to the advantage of the 
health and blood. Buttermilk is a direct tissue-builder of the 
highest possible value. As all foods turn to liquid in the stom¬ 
ach, it does not matter whether they are solid or not when eaten. 

WATER is the typical drink to relieve thirst, and there is 
nothing that will perform this duty so effectively as water. As 
it does not contain food for the stomach to act upon, it is not 
affected by the rules, of eating. It used to be believed that 
water-drinking during a meal was bad; it is bad only when it 
takes the place of saliva, as when food is washed into the stomach 
by any liquid. This is so vicious a habit that it seems strange 
that it should still survive. It is perfectly proper and good 
for digestion to drink slowly ‘between swallows, if the mouth 
is entirely empty. Drinking before a meal, and after a meal, is 
also helpful. The very best time is to drink freely before eating. 

Water should be free from mineral matter, as this brings on 
the disease known as old age. Spring water is filtered rain 
water, and rain water is aerated distilled water. Here we find 
the ideal drinking water for health and long life. 

When there are present together in the stomach foods that 
belong to different digestive-time classes, that food which is 
most easily digested will receive the whole attention of the stom¬ 
ach ; and, at the same time, the other food will undergo ferment 
which takes place very rapidly in the body under the conditions 
named. This ferment gives rise to the violent poison. 

As more than half of all the ills of life come from the uneven 
digestibility of foods in the stomach, it is very important that 


Nature’s Doctors 


101 


humanity should at once begin the study of the remedy. The 
cause is known. The prevention of this cause is better than 
the cure, for the cure often is too late in reaching the victim. 

The Five-Minute Class.—This includes foods that slip through 
the membranes of the mouth, throat and stomach, and enter at 
once, or almost at once, into the river of blood that courses 
through the body. The Five Minute Foods are Raw White of 
Eggs, Raw Yolk of Egg, Beef Juice, Clear Soup, Butter, Sugar 
and Honey. 

Rule 59 .—Foods of the Five Minute Class should not be eaten 
separately where they are intended to be combined with other 
foods. 

If the white of a raw egg is to be eaten, it is far better that it 
be taken by itself on an empty stomach; and the same is true 
of the raw yolk. Beef juice and clear soup are much better 
alone than with any other food. 

Butter, sugar and honey are intended to be used in combina¬ 
tion with other foods, and for this reason should not be eaten 
alone. 

Rule 60 .—Food classes that are close to each other in time of 
digesting blend together in a healthy stomach. 

Nature allows an hour of grace so that foods will not set up 
poisons in the system on slight provocation. In exceedingly 
strong stomachs her allowance is even more liberal. The forma¬ 
tion of gas, or the rolling sound, or a blind pain in the region of 
the stomach, will indicate the fact if there is danger from the 
formation of poison. There should never be gas, or “wind” in 
the body; and never an eructation at the throat, nor a sound of 
rumbling thunder subdued, in the bowels. 

Some of the established results are given here as the climax of 
many years of experiments along this line. 

1. If the white of egg, or the yolk, is not relished alone when 
raw, it may ally itself to a number of foods in the ONE HOUR 
CLASS, milk being the most natural, as it is composed of ex¬ 
actly the same elements as the raw egg. 

2. Beef Juice is better when taken alone, but it may be united 
with any of the ONE HOUR CLASS of foods that can well be 
eaten with it; bread being the most suitable of that class. 

3. There are many foods of the ONE HOUR CLASS that can 


102 Complete Life Building 

be eaten with butter; and some that are good with sugar, or 
honey. 

4. All the foods that are contained in the FIVE MINUTE 
CLASS and the ONE HOUR CLASS should always be kept in 
mind; they really constitute the ONE HOUR CLASS, as that 
embraces everything that is digested in one hour or less. 

It must be remembered that foods that are easily digested in 
the stomach are still undergoing a secondary and even third and 
fourth forms of digestion all the way along the tract of the 
digestive canal, of which the stomach is merely a part. Meats 
eaten after the middle of the day are sure to tax the system of 
a nervous person; and it is always the nervous person who loses 
sleep at night. 

Buie 61 .—The character of a meal should be determined by 
the use to be made of it. 

This rule means that you should eat for a purpose. If there 
is to be a hard day’s work of mind or muscles, there should be 
fuel in the stomach BEFORE the work is to be done, not after¬ 
wards. Therefore this class of eaters should get a good break¬ 
fast. If you cannot find an appetite for breakfast, it is due to 
the fact that your system is still struggling with an incautious 
or too heavy supper of the evening before. Omit one evening 
meal, and note how quickly your breakfast appetite will come 
to you, how speedily your morning headaches will disappear, 
and how soon that bad taste in the mouth vanishes. The person 
who says he has no appetite in the morning is like the boy whose 
hunger utterly failed him after his Christmas dinner; he was 
already over-loaded. Many persons get up in the morning with 
their bodies clogged with the food of the heavy eating of the 
preceding evening. 

People who are thin, or cold, or who have poor blood, should 
eat for growth of extra tissue; and this requires a heavy evening 
meal, but not a meal of heavy foods. Bulk counts more in value 
than solidity of matter. You can produce any result you wish, 
by eating in a certain way; and there are many different results 
that different people need. 

Buie 62 .—Foods that require a long time to digest are suited 
to people whose habits require long staying powers in their 
supply of nutrition. 

It has been found that laborers who eat nothing but baked 


Nature’s Doctors 


103 


beans at a meal, either in the morning or at noon, will have 
more endurance and power than if they had eaten foods that 
digest more speedily. Also a meal of nothing but brown bread 
will give the same results. But both these foods, or either of 
them, if eaten by a person of sedentary habits, will result in 
nervousness, for the system does not demand long time foods 
and is burdened in disposing of them. 

Rule 63 .—Persons who wish to rest their nerves and minds, 
and not indulge in hard mental or physical work, should eat 
only the foods of the ONE HOUR CLASS. 

Rule 64 .—Persons who wish quiet nerves and yet who desire 
sustenance for activities, should eat foods of the TWO HOUR 
CLASS. 

Rule 65 .—Foods should be selected in advance of the uses for 
which they are eaten; not after such uses. 

Eat ahead, is the meaning. If you need staying powers for a 
hard day's work, do not eat the staying foods AFTER the work 
is done. Yet most people do this on the theory that they need 
to repair the damaged system. This is like hitching the horse 
to the back of the wagon. All persons who have given the mat¬ 
ter a thorough test, time after time, and under all conditions 
have come to agree that the food must be taken ahead of the 
use to which it is to be put. If you are to drive a horse on a 
long journey, you will feed him for it before he starts; and if 
on a fast journey, you will give him a larger proportion of oats 
for that purpose. When he has a period of rest before him, he 
is fed for the rest, and not for hard work; or else he would be 
sick. 

Rule 66 .—Persons who seek perfect health should avoid all 
foods of the THIRD HOUR, FOURTH HOUR, FIFTH HOUR, 
and NEVER CLASS. 

This does not mean that all such foods are useless. They 
merely do some degree of harm when eaten by those who wish 
to secure the best health. 

Rule 67 .—If a meal is made up of foods in the TWO HOUR 
CLASS, it should exclude all other foods except those of the 
FIVE MINUTE CLASS. 

The reason for admitting the FIVE MINUTE foods with 
those of the TWO HOUR CLASS is plain; they are so quickly 


104 Complete Life Building 

digested that they do not hold back the digestion of the other 
foods more than five minutes, and this is not long enough to 
start ferment. It is in this rule of nature that her plans are 
seen at their best. 

It is pleasant to get away from these barbarous combinations 
that have done so much injury to the people as a race as well 
as individuals. 

A simple life would consist of a simple diet to begin with; 
and in it can be found real happiness. The twelve course meal 
is as wicked as anything that can be conceived by human in¬ 
genuity. The fewer the courses at the same meal, the more 
intelligent the mind that creates it. 

Rule 68. —As variety of food is lessened at the same meal, 
health is gained and preserved. 

Rule 69. —Cures that medicines have utterly failed to accom¬ 
plish have been effected by one-food meals. 

This may be called the golden rule of common sense as well 
as of health and longevity. 

Rule 70. —-Variety of meals is far better than variety in a 
meal. 

You need not adopt the one-food meals if you do not wish to 
do so; but the greatest geniuses and hardest mental workers of 
the world have often done so; not always. A famous President 
of the United States ate for his midday meal only one food; 
the same every day for many years; and he was robust and vig¬ 
orous. A Pope who lived to be more than ninety in fine health 
ate the same single food for his breakfast for half his life time; 
no variety at that meal, and no variety in his breakfasts. 

Suppose you like a dozen or twenty kinds of food, and wish 
to adopt the one-food meals, you could have only one kind of 
food at each meal, but no two meals need be alike until the 
dozen or twenty different kinds have been used. This is variety 
of meals, but not variety in a meal. 

The result is sure to prove so pleasing to you that you will 
become fascinated by it; and think how much labor can be saved 
the cook by such a method. The writer of this page has for 
over thirty years had nearly all his breakfasts of oatmeal and 
cream only. This is a one-food diet in the meal, and for the 
breakfasts as well; and it has proved the best that could be 
desired. 


Nature’s Doctors 


105 


FACTS ABOUT WHOLE WHEAT 


No subject of food has received more publicity in recent times 
than that of bread from white flour. 

It is a peculiar fact that a theory may be right in itself and 
wrong in its uses. Here are the true aspects of the case in re¬ 
gard to wheat flour: 

1. The whole wheat contains all the needed elements of the 
human body. 

2. These elements are in right proportion for building a per¬ 
fect body. 

3. No other single kind of food is thus endowed. Milk is next 
in value for these qualities, but is of greater importance because 
of other virtues, and yet is not concentrated enough to become 
the sole food of an adult, nor of a young person after infancy. 

4. In addition to all the needed elements, whole wheat con¬ 
tains in its husk a mass of wholly indigestible and dangerous 
material. This is not only injurious to the health but soon de¬ 
stroys the tone of the stomach and intestinal canal. 

BREAD, to be palatable, must be light; that is, porous. 

There has never been made a light loaf of bread from whole 
wheat, nor from wheat which has been deprived of the rough 
husk material. Improve it all you may, still it is impossible to 
produce a porous loaf. 

TOAST is essential to any high grade diet, yet there has never 
been made a palatable slice of toast from whole wheat flour. 

But if whole wheat can be produced that has nothing more 
in its composition than what is useful as food, then these objec¬ 
tions will be at once removed. But in America they have not 
been removed. 

Yet refined flour, white and light, capable of making the ideal 
loaf, is almost nothing but starch. It is the most unbalanced 
food in existence that holds a place of its importance. 

It is the most common cause of constipation. 

Life cannot be prolonged by its use alone for more than a 
few months; and tests upon animals show that death results 
in a few weeks when nothing but white flour products are fed 
to them. While milk is too diluted to be useful as a single 
article of diet, yet a strong man can live for years on nothing 



106 Complete Life Building 

but cow’s milk; but only a few months on white bread. On 
the other hand he can live a lifetime on white bread and bran 
water as a drink, and even gain in health and strength by this 
restoration of the missing parts of whole wheat. 

We have seen that polished rice from which the skin has been 
removed is not only an unbalanced food but is the cause of fatal 
epidemics, which can be wholly and quickly cured by nothing 
more than the restoration of the skin that has been removed in 
the process of polishing. 

But we cannot cure the evils resulting from white flour diet 
by restoring the bran, for the reason that bran contains dan¬ 
gerous and injurious material too harsh for the human system ; 
material that is used to scour big horses and other animals when 
a rough laxative is required. 

This difficulty is overcome by the use of bran water. 

Any Ralstonite of fifty years ago, or of any era since then, 
will recall that bran water has been constantly recommended 
as a drink and a food. It is made from any clean bran, by add¬ 
ing water and draining it off through cheese cloth; thereby 
securing the mineral salts of the bran, and keeping out the 
rough portions of this husk. Let it get cold, and add the juice 
of a lemon to a quart of this water; drink slowly during meals, 
or at any time when feeling the need of a stimulant. 

As a mid-meal lunch it is useful if followed by a small piece 
of Ralston Caramel which we have described under the head of 
SUGAR. 

To solve the problem of making a light or porous loaf and 
yet retain the mineral elements of whole wheat, some great 
bakeries have invented a process that uses flour to which have 
been added these elements freed from the bran. If this is done 
honestly, it is accomplished by using the vegetable cell struc¬ 
tures contained in bran that hold the missing parts in actual cell 
growth as they were taken from the wheat grain. But if done 
dishonestly, the lacking elements have been added in the form 
of minerals that have not passed through the growth that builds 
them into cells from the vegetable kingdom; and as such they 
are not good food. 

Bran however is all vegetation, all cell structures ready for 
food, and needs only to have the harsh husk dangers removed, 


Nature’s Doctors 


107 


which is done by adding water and draining it through cloth. 

There is another solution of this problem. 

Oatmeal contains a husk or bran surface that is much less 
rough than wheat; by using a fireless cooker and cooking oat¬ 
meal for several hours, it is harmless to all stomachs. But whole 
wheat should cook for twelve hours in a fireless cooker, after 
which it is freed from its danger; the husks having been 
softened and rendered safe to eat. 

Whole wheat pudding is thus made. 

After being cooked all night as we have described, let it be 
dried and toasted in the morning over a hot fire, until it is 
almost solid, which can be done in a double boiler ; then eaten 
with sugar and milk, or salt and milk. Experiments show that 
this food known as whole wheat pudding will sustain life and 
strength indefinitely, and help to bring a weak body into vigor 
and power. 

Oatmeal pudding can be made in the same way. 

Oatmeal water has been in use for hundreds of years and is 
made in the manner just described for making bran water. All 
these things are wholesome and health-giving. They supply the 
complete needs of the body. 


FACTS ABOUT POTATOES 


POTATOES, under the plan of living in the Ralston Health 
Club, form the chief article of food; for which reason the new¬ 
est and the oldest facts should be understood. These facts, as 
suggested, are not all new, but some of them are given to the 
public in this book for the first time. There are three varieties 
of claims respecting any food: 

Science. 

Theory. 

Proof. 

Science tells us many things about what we eat, the truth of 
which goes no further than the chemical department, and would 
be valuable if man were an engine of mere mechanism. Thus 
the calories that would run machinery might kill a human being. 
Thus science tells us that wheel grease or soap grease contains 




108 


Complete Life Building 

all the calories and all the vitamines needed to sustain life; but 
science does not tell us these things will not suit the human 
machine. 

Theory is the basis of all the teachings now in vogue regarding 
health from the standpoint of the educated man who does not 
apply his knowledge to life itself. For example, theory tells 
us that iron will make red corpuscles in the blood: and gloats 
with satisfaction when a dose of iron does in fact show an in¬ 
crease in the red blood color; but theory does not stop to ascer¬ 
tain that there is a difference between staining the corpuscles 
red, and making them red in fact. Because of this lack of 
knowledge many persons have lost their lives from tuberculosis 
which follows the taking of iron as medicine. 

PROOF is the application of knowledge to the use of foods 
by trying them as food, and watching the results; not in a few 
thousand cases, nor through a dozen years; but in hundreds of 
thousands of cases through two generations. This method of 
securing proof is the mission and purpose of the Ralston Health 
Club. Not science alone; nor theory alone; but the facts them¬ 
selves. Thus the same calories and vitamines that are contained 
in wagon grease and soap grease, are found in other things that 
are suited to the human body. Thus iron which, as a medicine, 
causes loss of lung vitality, is found in vegetable cells, in organic 
form, not in chemical form, and such organic life will blend 
perfectly with the blood and make new life which strengthens 
the lungs as well as all the body. 

It was the Ralston Health Club that discovered that nothing 
is food that has not been organized in growing life of some kind. 
Even the flesh of animals is composed of organized life. 

By the means of PROOF just described, we have established 
the following facts about POTATOES. 

1. Potatoes are the chief food of humanity in this part of the 
world. 

2. The practice of sterilizing potatoes to prevent them from 
sprouting destroys most of the high food value. 

3. The principal value of the potato is close to and in the skin • 
the next grade of nutrition is that near the skin; yet during the 
war, when the Government was urging people to plant potatoes 
everywhere, cooks were peeling them with thick parings which 
were thrown away, with the result that more than ninety percent 


Nature’s Doctors 


109 


of the food value was wholly lost; and this at a time when semi¬ 
starvation reduced human vitality to such a low ebb that the 
great epidemic slew hundreds of thousands, and ruined for life 
the vitality of millions of others. 

4. A new potato possesses no food value whatever until the 
skin is developed. The test is to try to slide the thumb over the 
skin; if it slips away, the potato is unripe. As acute indiges¬ 
tion and quick death have followed the eating of new potatoes, 
it is wise to adopt this test before buying or using them. Even 
then when too new, it should not he given to young children. 
The best time to dig a potato crop is when the plants have not 
only faded and withered, but have actually crumbled away. 
The potatoes go on growing after the plants seem dead. 

5. So important is the potato as the chief article of food that 
there should be a nation-wide course of instruction in the prac¬ 
tice of keeping them from sprouting without sterilizing them. 
Of course coldstorage will do this safely, but few persons have 
such advantages. But it is possible to keep the right variety 
of potato twelve months without sprouting. 

6. When a potato has sprouted the value has been lost to some 
extent. A waxy potato is useless and dangerous; so is one that 
is wrinkled and withered; these enter into the making of what 
is known as pearl tapioca, which causes disease. The flake or 
coarse tapioca is a very good food. 

7. We have for forty years tried and tested every variety of 
potato, and have found but one, the Cobbler, that contains full 
food value when a year old, that remains solid, and holds its 
new potato flavor. By learning how to keep this variety free 
from sprouting, man will have acquired a needed food for his 
body. As new potatoes from the South are in the market three 
months before they are ready in the North, it may require only 
nine months of time to keep the latter crops from sprouting, 
and the problem is simplified to this extent. 

8. There is only one way to cook a potato. BAKE IT. 
Boiled, fried, or mashed potatoes have but little food value. 
This value being in the skin and close to the skin, is nearly all 
lost when not baked; the center of the potato by itself is a poi¬ 
son ; like rice; but, like rice, when combined with the whole sur¬ 
face, is a food of the highest value. Look in the Index at the 
end of this book for BICE, and read all that is said about it. 


110 Complete Life Building 

9. The baked potato should be cut up into small parts so that 
the skin is mixed thoroughly with the rest; then it should be 
SALTED to taste; but plenty of salt is required in order to 
produce the stomach fluid which is absolutely necessary to di¬ 
gestion. Then cream or whole milk should be poured plentifully 
over the mixture, according to the taste of the person eating it. 
The potato thus prepared is palatable in the highest degree; in 
fact there is no food that holds the same rank with it for the 
pleasure it gives the palate. 

10. Baked potatoes with the underskin, eaten with salt and 
cream or milk, is a complete food; this means that it will sup¬ 
port all the life and all the functions of the body indefinitely, 
bringing health, freedom from disease, freedom from constipa¬ 
tion, the arch enemy of the body, and growth and development 
to all parts of the body. Tests have been made showing this 
one article to be the best mono-diet known; for further informa¬ 
tion as to mono-diet consult the Index for One-Food Meals. 
Other tests have been made that prove that humanity can live on 
this alone and thrive in perfect health; but we are not suggest¬ 
ing that anyone do this. Nature intends variety, and we must 
find it; but the best variety is composed of perfect foods alone, 
of which the potato in the form stated is one leading example. 

11. A potato that has been exposed to the sun forms a green 
color on the skin, and the whole potato is a poison; it is best 
to throw it away. Also one that has a slight rotten spot on it 
should be wholly discarded. 

12. It is necessary to maintain the daily motion of the intes¬ 
tinal canal; and this is accomplished by having a certain amount 
of bulk in the food that is eaten. This proportion of bulk is 
found in the potato, and in a better form than in any other kind 
of food. 

13. Civilization is that stage in human life where no food is 
eaten that is not a body-builder; and where all the necessary 
kinds of food are eaten to make all parts of the body. Potatoes 
with salt and cream contain all these needed elements with none 
that are useless. 

14. This book has for its mission the furnishing of a moun¬ 
tain of proofs that sickness, old age, decrepitude, and all dis¬ 
comforts, cravings and vicious habits are the result of poisons 
admitted to the body by the use of non-food elements or such 


Nature’s Doctors 


111 


elements as are of no use in body-building; and one of these 
proofs is found in the exclusive use of baked potatoes with their 
underskins, taken with salt and cream; as an experiment only; 
not for a day, but for ten years with no other food, and no drink 
but pure water. Do not for a moment imagine that we are 
recommending this mono-diet. It was an experiment made by 
a number of people in order to determine whether or not life 
could be maintained on such a diet; made in the interest of 
science, with the result that every one of the experimenters not 
only kept in perfect health of mind and body, but overcame 
every form of disease and threatened organic trouble until they 
were immune. They proved that sickness, premature death, 
ripening of the faculties, and every kind of physical suffering 
were due to the eating of the non-food elements that enter 
largely in the diet of most families everywhere. 

Civilization rises above errors. 

The human race is not civilized while it grovels in errors. 

The gravest of all errors is that which is born of ignorance, 
stupidity and indifference, whereby the system is constantly fed 
things that do not build the body; it is the gravest because the 
long train of sickness and suffering follows in its wake. If the 
world were to overcome half its errors, it would be half civil¬ 
ized. If it were to overcome ninety percent of its errors it would 
be ninety percent civilized. 

In the matter of body building, if humanity were to adopt as 
a food system only those elements that are needed to build the 
body, then the people would be 

ONE HUNDRED PERCENT CIVILIZED. 


FACTS ABOUT MILK 


Much is being preached to-day about the value of milk, most 
of which is taught blindly. Life begins and ends generally on 
this food. No known substitute has been found, and in the 
nature of things it is certain that nothing can take its place. 

But while milk will support life almost indefinitely, cheese 
will destroy it. Millions of babies have died from drinking milk 
instead of eating it; and having to battle with the cheese lumps 




112 


Complete Life Building 

that have been formed in the stomach and intestines, with colic 
as the attendant evil. 

It has always been known that ordinary cheese is indigestible. 

We advocated for some time the use of cottage cheese, as a 
mild compromise between the real article and milk; but tests 
made very recently have proved that even cottage cheese is 
almost useless as food, and that it contains a poison that sets up 
what is known as toxic dangers in the system. Some persons 
of robust health are able to dispose of this mild form; but others 
suffer by its use. In all cases whether eaten by the sick or the 
well, it is not worthy a place in any diet. 

If you take a pail of milk and place rennet in it, you will 
make curd and whey; the former being removed as the basis of 
cheese. Kennet is the stomach of a calf. Your own stomach not 
only is capable of making cheese, but does so in fact whenever 
you drink milk; and you have a ball of indigestible cheese wait¬ 
ing there for something to take place. What takes place de¬ 
pends on the weakness or strength of your heart. If you dis¬ 
pose of this lump the toxic dangers then follow all along the 
intestinal canal. 

Why drink milk? 

Health writers, and all doctors say drink from one to four 
quarts of milk daily. This is wicked advice. Drink none at all. 

EAT milk. 

Do you recall the time when long nippled bottles were handed 
to babies? The opening at the end of the nipple allowed the 
fluid to come out freely. The long nipple sent the milk into 
the throat. The result was for many generations an enormous 
infant death rate. No baby can drink milk and be safe. Colic 
and distress are the fruits of that habit. 

So some inventive mind suggested the practice of eating milk. 
The nipple was given a smaller opening ; and its length was re¬ 
duced so that the fluid entered the mouth at the front instead 
of at the throat; and the milk flowed only fast enough to allow 
it to be mixed with the saliva. It had to pass the whole length 
of the mouth, and it was thus thoroughly salivated. The result 
was the prevention of colic if the bottle and milk were clean or 
free from dirt germs. Infantile mortality began to lessen. Was 
it worth while? Here is one illustration of the difference be¬ 
tween drinking and eating milk. 


Nature’s Doctors 


113 


If you sip milk slowly, salivating every mouthful before you 
swallow it, you EAT it. If you dump it into the stomach as a 
mass to be made into cheese, and to set up toxic poisoning and 
intestinal indigestion, you are drinking it. 

A better way to eat milk is to toast old bread until it is dry, 
and break it into small bits; drop these from time to time in 
milk, and take each bit by itself into the mouth, and swallow 
slowly. In this way you can daily devour all the milk that your 
system requires. Added to this practice is the use of milk on 
baked potatoes, rice, wheat pudding, hominy, oatmeal and corn- 
meal; using it in abundance. These are all ideal foods, and 
build a perfect body. 


FACTS ABOUT MEAT 


There are many diverse opinions on the subject of meat eat¬ 
ing. On the one hand we have the advocates for a strictly 
vegetable diet; on the other hand, the use of meat in modera¬ 
tion is recommended. 

For some reason or other nearly all doctors, before they as¬ 
certain what is really the matter with patients, start the treat¬ 
ment by ordering them to stop eating meat; to discard all kinds 
of flesh; and in many cases they are told to eat fish, eggs, milk, 
cream, butter, and cheese. All these are products of the animal 
kingdom. To make oneself a strict vegetarian, it is necessary to 
live like herbaceous animals. 

But such animals are created by nature to digest nothing but 
their kinds of food; while the human body is made for both 
animal and vegetable products; for flesh, fish, fowl and the like. 
In fact the young babe is not given the digestive fluids that can 
dispose of any product of the vegetable kingdom; these would 
kill it in a day. The grains or cereals furnish starch as their 
chief material for the support of life, and yet it is a fact that 
infants are not given the stomach fluids that will act on starch; 
generally they should be a year old before such foods are used. 
Hence the child is dependent on the animal kingdom in order 
to get a foothold on the world. 

Humanity must have existed for thousands of years on the 
animal kingdom before it was possible to till the land to raise 




114 Complete Life Building 

grains and other forms of food. Fruits and grasses were inci¬ 
dents only, and were useful principally in the tropics, promot¬ 
ing laziness, and yielding no promise of civilization. 

It will never be possible for the race to exist without milk, 
cream and butter; all produced from the beef animals, and to 
some extent from others. There is no fat equal to butter; no 
appeal to the palate equal to cream; no food basis equal to milk. 
These ensure the use of beef animals as long as humanity dwells 
on this globe. 

The crankiest kind of a crank is that person who seeks for 
the sake of being a vegetarian in the fullest sense to avoid all 
products of the animal kingdom. Such a person suffers from 
anemia, no matter what effect it may have on the general ap¬ 
pearance; and anemia is followed or attended by weak heart 
action, fainting, spells of semi-consciousness, loss of sleep, and 
finally by mental breakdown and unfitness for life generally. 
In the meantime all that portion of the human body that is 
built by nature for the digestion of animal products is left to 
idleness which means atrophy. 

The next class of vegetarians includes people who are willing 
to eat certain things if they are not asked to eat flesh. They 
take eggs, milk, cream, butter, cheese and fish; but avoid the 
fibre of meat. If they can maintain a balanced food they are 
able to keep in health. But to too many persons eggs are poison¬ 
ous; this fact can be ascertained by a blood test which any doc¬ 
tor can make. Other persons drink milk and so suffer from 
cheese balls in the stomach, and from toxic poisoning. Others 
eat cheese itself, and continue to suffer from indigestion and 
toxic troubles, as well as intestinal difficulties. Fish rarely is a 
substitute for meat, and is always an unbalanced food, the near¬ 
est useful kind being red salmon. 

There is no vegetable oil that can take the place of butter 
from milk; and most of these vegetable substitutes are poisons, 
like cotton seed butter. Even olive oil when pure, which is al¬ 
most never in this country, sets up serious disturbances with 
people who are not born to its use. 

But what we understand as meat is the flesh or fibre, or tissue, 
of the animal. Beef and mutton are the only two real meats 
that are suited to human life, and that are free from the gen¬ 
eral objections of animal foods. All products from swine are 


Nature’s Doctors 


115 


direct poisons. Poultry, birds, and fowl generally, even if com¬ 
ing from clean feeding which is rare, have less food value than 
common white bread. Their fats and mineral salts are their 
chief qualities. 

The only real meats, therefore, are mutton and beef. 

Lamb is too young to have developed true food value; and 
the same is true of veal. The wool, skins and meat of sheep all 
combine to make it a highly valuable animal. 

Beef produces the much needed hides, and has a value therein 
that cannot be denied. From beef animals come butter, cream 
and the ever needed milk. These two classes of animals must 
always serve the* race until the world shall be worn out. Mutton 
should not be cooked until all its juices are burned up; but is 
not best rare-; while all beef should be cooked and eaten rare. 
Otherwise both kinds of meat will give only the fibre or tissue 
as food, and this is not highly valuable. 

Many kinds of fish are useful; the red salmon being the best 
body builder; and the tuna fish having no food value at all, as 
it is only doctored fibre. 

Poultry meat is the result of filthy feeding as often as of clean 
eating; as hens are natural scavengers, preferring bugs, insects 
and offal when left to their choice-; and their flesh is not whole¬ 
some for the human race, when so fed. 

Tumors, boils, carbuncles and abscesses all have their origin 
in the eating of flesh of bird, poultry or animal other than sheep 
or beef; the basis of such maladies, being the soil from flesh in 
which the specific germs of the disease find lodgment. Thus 
boils come from outside germs on the skin that meet the soil 
from eating swine meat; such germs generally, in the first boil, 
being rubbed under the skin by the clothing. Inherited blood 
taint may be the basis of abscesses. 


FACTS ABOUT SUGAR 


Cane sugar is intended by nature to become a food for 
humanity. 

This is not true of beet sugar, nor of maple sugar, both of 
which are irritants to the stomach. 

Unrefined or brown sugar of the cane is not only a food, being 




116 Complete Life Building 

rich in carbon, but also contains a considerable amount of other 
matter that helps build the body; besides which it is a laxative; 
while white sugar is constipating, and therefore injurious. 

Why man ever came to refine sugar and remove from it its 
chief value is hard to determine. We know that he had good 
reason for refining the flour of wheat, as the whole flour will 
not make bread that is palatable, nor produce a light loaf. But 
when he took from brown sugar the material that gives it the 
brown color, he also took away its delicious flavor, its great food 
value, and its medicinal qualities. 

Brown sugar is the dried out portion of molasses; and every 
doctor knows* that molasses 1 makes the most wholesome candy, 
and is the most natural of all laxatives. White sugar does not 
make a healthful candy, and its relation to the unrefined kind 
may be seen by the fact that it quickly constipates the bowels. 
If it does this there is some deficiency in its make-up, which is 
absent in brown sugar. 

Sugar and molasses are force-producers; one ounce of sugar 
gives more energy than a pound of beef. If you add a little 
sugar to an ordinary meal, you increase the force making power 
of that meal thirty percent. Some persons believe in eating 
sugar on rice, wheat pudding, oatmeal, hominy and cornmeal; 
but we prefer salt on these; and sugar in the form of candy 
after a meal; and for the following reason: 

It has been proved many times that the presence of food in 
the stomach will not of itself attract the gastric juice and thus 
begin digestion; but that when there is food in the stomach if 
something is in the mouth that pleases the palate, the gastric 
juice will be drawn at once into the stomach, and digestion will 
be increased in proportion to the pleasure given by what is in 
the mouth. This is why mints and candy are used to follow a 
banquet or formal dinner; or salted almonds are given as the 
final attraction. 

Following this great law of nature it is an act of wisdom as 
well as of health to place a piece of candy in the mouth after 
rising from the table; a piece that will remain there for a min¬ 
ute or more, the longer the better. This brings us to the new 
recipe for making Ralston Caramels. We append this recipe 
because there are few or no pure candies on the market. Sub¬ 
stitutes are numerous, to say nothing of many adulterations. 


Nature’s Doctors 


117 


SACCHARIN.—This is a dreg from coal tar; it is white and 
has a sweetness 300 times greater than that of white sugar. 
Doctors and food experts say it is not a poison; but admit that 
its continued use will eat away the lining of the stomach, which 
will heal and be well again if this coal tar product be withdrawn 
for a few months; and providing that no other irritant in the 
meanwhile shall enter the stomach. Owing to its intense sweet¬ 
ness and its low price, it is used in adulterating almost all soda 
water fruit syrups; almost all ice cream; practically all store 
candies; much cake from bakeries; juices of canned fruits; and 
other things that enter the human stomach. Better discard all 
these things. Buy sugar and molasses, and make your own. 

RALSTON CARAMELS 

Get a very large kettle, a very long spoon, and also a smaller 
kettle, the latter about six quarts in size. Also five or six low 
pans of tin. 

In. the big kettle, which should hold easily the following con¬ 
tents, and not be more than one-fourth full, place : 

One quart of molasses, dark or light. 

One quart of sweet milk, that is new milk. 

Six pounds of brown sugar. 

Put over a very hot fire and stir all the time. 

When it begins to boil add one half pound of butter. 

When it has boiled ten minutes, add one pound of pure 
chocolate. 

When it has boiled five minutes more, add one-fourth pint of 
peanut butter. This is not a good food but has its uses as a 
flavoring agency. 

Cook till it is done. Have the pans ready to pour the candy 
in. 

Learn when to take it off; if it is removed too soon, it will be 
sticky and interfere with conversation if a room full of guests 
try to eat it at the same time. It is very easy to determine 
w r hen it is ready. If it gets too well done it will have a burnt 
and smoky taste, and not chew like gum. The smaller kettle 
should be filled two-thirds full of water as cold as you have, 
with a lump of ice added if you can find it. 

When the candy begins to thicken and not rise in the kettle, 


118 Complete Life Building 

dip out a small portion in the large spoon; let it drop at once 
in the cold water to see if it will crackle when pressed by the 
fingers into a thin mass under the water. Keep doing this until 
the thin edges are brittle and break in trying to bend them. 
Now pour in the tin pans and place anywhere to cool. If the 
caramel is a success it will be easily broken by a hammer and 
yet will have the finest chewing qualities. 

The advantages of this food as a digestive influence after a 
meal are as follows: 

It will cause a strong flow of gastric juice to the stomach. 

It will aid digestion. 

The milk will yield its mineral salts to the uses of the body. 

The sugar and molasses will prove a mild and natural laxa¬ 
tive and thus overcome the tendency to constipation, the great 
poison enemy of life. 

The sugar, butter and chocolate will give fuel force to the 
body. 

When this caramel is cooling it can be cut into small squares, 
and wrapped, each piece separately, in wax paper; and in this 
way it can be carried with you. 

Many persons have a headache between meals; one square of 
this caramel will, if held in the mouth and not chewed, stop 
such headache by supplying the needed stimulant to the blood. 

GLUCOSE is another substitute for sugar and is much used 
in the making of candies. It has almost no sweetness, and is 
not assimilated by the blood, but passes through the body un¬ 
changed. It taxes the kidneys and has been the cause of 
Bright*s Disease by being used in beer, canned goods, syrups 
and confectionery. Millions of pounds are devoured every year 
by the people of this country in the above articles. It is made 
from the juice of the cornstalk, and, like many so-called corn 
products, has none of the corn grain in it. 

Owing to the destructive character of the gastric juice it is 
wrong to eat candy on an empty stomach; for this excites the 
flow of the juice when there is nothing in the stomach on which 
it can act. Always eat candy after a meal when it can aid di¬ 
gestion ; or hold a piece in the mouth to melt there and be ab¬ 
sorbed by the throat glands into the circulation without chewing, 
as the latter action sets in motion the flow of gastric juice. 
Tobacco should never be chewed on an empty stomach for the 


Nature’s Doctors 


119 


same reason, and for others also; nor on any other kind of a 
stomach. Gum chewing on an empty stomach is one of the pro¬ 
lific causes of what is known as dry stomach; it uses up the 
gastric juice when it is not needed and leaves none when it is 
demanded. Following a meal it aids digestion if the chewer 
does not view herself in the mirror while manipulating the face 
muscles. 


VALUE OF ICE WATER 


By countless tests and experiments among hundreds of thou¬ 
sands of people, certain facts have been proved, some of which 
revolutionize the popular belief in many things. We will men¬ 
tion some of them: 

1. HOT WATER does injury to the mouth, the food passage, 
the palate, and the stomach. Yet for a generation or more, the 
people have been told to drink hot water. They like their 
drinks very hot; but it is easily proved that any hot fluid does 
harm to the tissues. 

2. When a person is suffering from unusual cold and is chilled, 
there is then an excuse for giving him something hot to drink; 
but in normal cases it is much better to avoid a hot fluid, by 
which we mean one that is on the verge of scalding. What is 
known as a hot drink is generally one that is very warm; and 
this is beneficial. 

3. When you are very thirsty the saliva in the back of your 
mouth is thick, ropy and sticky. A hot drink will not cut this 
and dissolve it unless it is hot enough to scald, in which case 
it is decidedly harmful. 

4. But ice cold water taken in sips against this sticky mass, 
quickly sets it free. More than this it invites a healthy saliva 
which has been absent or dried up. On the other hand hot 
drinks keep all saliva from entering the mouth. 

5. No sensation of relief can be greater than that which fol¬ 
lows the sipping of ice water under the conditions above stated. 

6. Animals, especially cats and dogs, often have this ropy, 
sticky, thick mass at the back of the mouth. Warm water, or 
even cool water, will not cut it out; hence they are especially 
grateful for a small quantity of ice cold water. 




120 Complete Life Building 

7. Many years ago a baby was crying daily, and could not be 
quieted. It kept up the crying for hours at a time. It had no 
physical trouble, as a very thorough examination proved. A 
doctor, following the teachings of his profession, was about to 
administer an opiate, which meant unnatural sleep. By acci¬ 
dent we learned of the case and examined the baby’s mouth. 
At the back of the tongue was this sticky, thick, ropy mucus in 
a dry state. It could not do otherwise than cause a distressing 
discomfort to the infant. We gave it ice water on the tip of 
a spoon; not enough to enter the stomach, but sufficient to reach 
the back of the mouth. The relief was instant. Ever after, 
when the baby cried, ice water was given it; and it grew into 
a patient, wholesome child, much the better for its ice cold 
drink. It was six months old when it had its first ice water. 
It soon learned to ask for it instead of being put to the incon¬ 
venience of actually crying. This fact was published far and 
wide, and we have the pleasure of knowing that countless thou¬ 
sands have benefited by it. 

8. It has been discovered that this thick, ropy, sticky mucus 
of dried saliva at the back of the mouth is a dangerous soil for 
disease. The new practice of cutting out the tonsils to get rid 
of mucus poisons can be avoided in many instances by the use 
of ice water sipped after meals, or at any time of the day or 
night. This does not mean to pour a flood of chilled water into 
the stomach. Sip enough to reach the back of the mouth. 

9. Yet, speaking of the stomach, it was learned some time 
ago that ice water drank in small quantities, not sipped merely, 
will cure severe cases of indigestion. This is accounted for on 
two grounds: First, it has been found that what pleases the 
saliva sends gastric juice into the stomach through the walls of 
the latter organ, which are porous. Sipping and drinking ice 
water after a meal, thus helps digestion. But a stranger law 
comes into play. Peculiar as it seems, the presence of ice water 
in the mouth, draws healthful saliva there; and in the stomach, 
it arouses the action or churning motion of that organ, which 
is stagnated during indigestion. 

10. The saliva is controlled by very sensitive nerves that run 
to the stomach. What pleases the palate where the saliva 
gathers, will always arouse the flow of gastric juice into the 
stomach. When the palate is gratified, it sends by its nerves 


Nature’s Doctors 


121 


a thrill of gratification to the stomach; but it also brings into 
the palate a new flow of saliva. For this reason ice water 
causes the saliva to come to the mouth, while hot water or even 
warm or cool water will drive it away. 

11. It is a well-known law that food in the mouth must be 
mixed with saliva before it can be digested in the stomach; for 
which reason it is harmful to wash down food with any liquid. 
Any liquid not ice cold will drive away the saliva. On the 
other hand it has been proved many times by long continued 
experiments that if a person will take a mouthful of food and 
retain it in the mouth long enough to mix it with saliva, then 
swallow it, and before the next mouthful, take a sip of ice 
water, both mastication and digestion will proceed to the best 
advantage. 


FACTS ABOUT SALT 


One of the most dangerous foes of health is the man who tells 
you that a certain person did so and so and always had perfect 
freedom from sickness. Now and then we hear a man say that 
his grandmother had never touched salt and lived to be a hun¬ 
dred in consequence. 

It is true that some persons advocate the omission of salt 
from the daily food; citing the fact that a certain tribe never 
ate salt and were quite all right. But investigation shows that 
the tribe lived on meat obtained from hunting; and all meat 
holds an abundance of salt. 

Then when salt is mentioned, the kind in mind is always what 
is known as common or table salt; not one person in a thousand 
knows that there are many kinds of salt besides that which is 
seen on the table. Here are some of them, and they are found 
in many of the foods that are eaten daily: 

Chloride of sodium. 

Chloride of potassium. 

Carbonate of soda. 

Carbonate of potassium. 

Carbonate of magnesium. 

Sulphate of sodium. 




122 


Complete Life Building 

Sulphate of potassium. 

Sulphate of magnesium. 

Phosphate of sodium. 

Phosphate of potassium. 

Phosphate of magnesium. 

Phosphate of calcium. 

Salts of iron. 

Salts of organic acids. 

These salts serve a variety of purposes and without them life 
would be impossible. The composition of the blood depends on 
them. They prevent the disorganization and decay of the tis¬ 
sues. They enter into the structure of parts of the body. 

# When taken in excess they do injury, such as causing irrita¬ 
tion of the stomach and membranes, breaking up the blood struc¬ 
ture, leading to skin troubles and dyspepsia. Lime salts and 
phosphates when taken in water or food in large quantities 
tend to cause the deposit of gallstones and calculi, especially 
stones in the bladder. 

Some of the common salts can be omitted continually with¬ 
out danger if the others are supplied in reasonable abundance; 
but the omission of most of the salts will ruin the health of 
man or animal and bring death in a short time; or if the salt 
starvation, as it is called, is not complete, the health will be af¬ 
fected, appetite will fail, food cannot be digested, the muscles 
will become flabby, the mind stupid and dull, the skin dry and 
abnormal in its structure, and the hair will be very thin. In 
animals salt starvation ends in death in about six weeks. 

Children whose daily food contains less salt than is required, 
will have bone deformities, known as rhachitis, or rickets. 

COMMON SALT, known as chloride of sodium, or sodium 
chloride, is by far the most valuable of the salts. For many 
centuries it has been venerated and worshipped in the East, 
and has been a symbol of wisdom and hospitality. Homer called 
it “divine.'’ It is the chief salt in the formation of the blood, 
and enters in the making of all the tissues and secretions of the 
body. It is needed in the formation of the gastric juice with¬ 
out which digestion could not take place. It stimulates the 
action of the kidneys and tends to keep them in health. By 
creating some thirst it attracts the use of water as a drink, and 


Nature’s Doctors 


123 


this is required in order that the blood may flow freely and 
the heart do its work. 

By furnishing the chlorine for hydrochloric acid, it renders 
the most important aid to digestion; but in addition it stimu¬ 
lates the flow of this secretion into the stomach, which explains 
why salted water taken after the stomach is full and stagnant 
will set in motion the process of digestion. Also it makes use¬ 
ful the eating of salted nuts after a full meal. 

It has been proved over and over again in countless tests that 
the absence of salt from the diet completely stops the production 
of gastric juice in the stomach, leading to dry stomach from 
which acute indigestion may quickly follow. 

The only three cases we have heard of where salt has been 
omitted in the diet, have proved to be cases of persons who eat 
heavily of meat, especially beef and mutton which are rich in 
salts; or milk which also contains this necessary article. 

A person who omitted salt from his food and ate neither 
meat nor milk would die in a few weeks. The same fact holds 
true with animals; those that feed on flesh do not require 
salt; those who feed on grass must have it added to their food 
in order to secure health and growth. 

The craving for salt is instinctive among men as well as 
among animals who do not feed on meat. Stanley in his “ Dark¬ 
est Africa” records the fact that the non-meat-eating savages 
travel many hundreds of miles under great difficulties to obtain 
even a small supply of common salt, or sodium chloride, the 
kind we see on the table. 

The rule for using common salt should be this: Flavor food 
to taste, not over-doing it, but taking enough to satisfy the 
palate, and so take it at each meal. If slightly too much is eaten, 
the kidneys will throw off the excess. 

That we are always on the borderland of fatal danger is seen 
from an examination of 

THE POISON SIDE OF COMMON SALT 

As has been stated this is composed of two elements: Sodium 
and Chlorine. 

Sodium is a lustrous, grayish white metal. It is a violent 
poison. When water touches it, the action is violent and ex- 


124 Complete Life Building 

tremely severe. In experiments students are warned to handle 
it only with forceps, and never with the fingers; and, to avoid 
contact with water, to carry it in bottles with kerosene oil. 

The other element of common table salt is Chlorine; which 
furnishes the spark of life, aided by calcium, and is necessary 
to the action of the heart, brain, nervous system and organs. 
Chlorine is a gas of a light yellow color, of suffocating odor. 
It is by itself very poisonous, and quickly kills all kinds of 
life. 

When salt is taken with the food it separates in the blood, 
and its Chlorine is mixed with the chief water element, hydro¬ 
gen, thus maintaining safety in life by the wise caution of 
nature. 


FACTS ABOUT FRUIT 


The knowledge of the uses and value of fruit has been revolu¬ 
tionized in late years; and what was considered as wisdom in 
this line a short time ago is now regarded as contrary to the 
truth. Too much dependence was placed on theory. For in¬ 
stance the old adage that fruit in the morning was golden, at 
noon was silver, and at night was lead, has been discarded. 
What we know now has come about by the use of experiments’ 
not one or a few, nor those made in isolated parts of the land, 
but general, widely tried tests of what fruit really does to the 
human body. 

For a clear understanding of the subject, let us first make 
two classes of fruits: 

1. The food class. 

2. The juice class. 

In the Food Class we find the following: 

1. Best of all: DATES. 

2. Next best: RAISIN,S. 

3. FIGS. 

4. Skins of SWEET GRAPES. 

5. Skins of baked, ripe sweet apples. 

6. Bananas. These are really vegetables, but are generally 
called fruit. 

In the Juice Class we have the following: 




Nature’s Doctors 


125 


7. Oranges when fully ripe and sweet. 

8. The royal juice of grapes. 

9. The royal flesh of apples fully ripe. 

10. Peaches. 

11. Plums. 

12. Pears. 

13. Cherries when fully ripe and sweet. 

14. Raspberries. 

15. Blackberries. 

WHEN AND HOW TO EAT FRUIT 

DATES.—These are almost life supporting. After a meal, 
and as soon as possible, they should be eaten by putting one in 
the mouth, allowing the stone to come free and be discarded, 
then leaving the flesh of the date to melt in the mouth. The 
longer it remains there, the better it is for the digestion of the 
food in the stomach, on the principle that digestion is not car¬ 
ried on principally by the stimulating action of the food in the 
stomach, but because of the pleasure afforded the palate at the 
mouth. 

In the middle of the forenoon if you feel depressed, eat a few 
dates in the following manner; eat slowly all you desire except 
one, and allow that one to melt in the mouth in the manner 
stated. But do not take dates too near to the time of the noon 
meal, as you may weaken your appetite. 

In the middle of the afternoon if again you feel depressed 
physically, take dates in the manner already described for the 
forenoon. 

As no person should go to sleep at night on an empty stomach, 
unless the evening meal has been taken too close to the time of 
retiring, it is wise to take three or four dates just as you get 
into bed; eating all but one and allowing the last one to remain 
in the mouth to melt away. This is one of the best cures for 
sleeplessness unless too heavy an evening meal has been eaten. 

RAISINS.—These are almost a perfect food; not quite as val¬ 
uable as dates; and not so useful for the special periods of eating. 

Try always to secure the seeded raisins; never the seedless 
kinds. Also avoid sultanas and currants, both of which are 
valueless as food. 


126 Complete Life Building 

Raisins when allowed to melt in the month after a meal will 
help digestion. If taken on an empty stomach it is well to see 
that they are cleaned, as they are not as free from dirt as a rule 
as dates. 

FIGS.—These should be eaten skins and all, and in the same 
manner as dates; but should be chewed as long as possible and 
into fine bits. 

GRAPES.—The native grape of our country is rich in iron 
and in food minerals if used as food. A grape has four parts: 
the skin; the royal juice which is found close under the skin; 
the pulp; and the seeds. 

It is the skin that contains the iron and other values. This 
can be eaten at any time of the day or night, but must be 
chewed into a very fine mass. It is of great value when made 
into a preserve or grape butter, to be used in winter or other 
times. It is a mistake to discard the skin when eating fresh 
grapes. 

The royal juice is the free fluid that is under skin that flows 
away when the skin is broken. For centuries in Europe what 
is known as royal wine has been made from this free juice, 
obtained by allowing the weight of a mass of grapes to force 
it out without pressing. The wine so made was saved for royalty 
and noble families; and the juice of the pulp was made into 
wine for sale and export. With the skins and the royal juice 
we have all that is fit for the human stomach as far as the 
grape is concerned. We come now to the unfit parts. 

The pulp of the grape is a poison, but of very slight danger. 
In the raisin this poison is neutralized by the process of drying, 
especially the artificial method of dipping them in boiling lye 
of wood ashes and quick lime. People who eat fresh grapes 
swallow this pulp, with the seeds, and eject the skins; thus 
reversing the intended uses of nature. The pulp should never 
be swallowed, nor used to make jelly or preserves; it serves to 
produce wine of the sour kind. Grape juice is unfit to use when 
the pulp is employed as part of its supply. You may say this 
is a waste of much of the grape; yet it is not very much; and 
what has been good for royalty for centuries is none too good 
for the people of to-day. 

APPLES.—Like the grape the apple has its iron and mineral 
producing part, its royal part, and its poison part. 


Nature’s Doctors 


127 


Many persons eat the skin of an apple. It is all right to do 
this, but the better way is to secure sweet and fully ripe apples; 
bake them in the usual manner; and eat the skin with cream 
or rich milk, including the royal flesh. Here you secure the 
iron and mineral values. 

There is a super-flavored portion of a really ripe apple which 
lies close to the skin. It is about a half inch to an inch in 
thickness depending on the size of the apple. You can find it 
by studying and tasting the apple itself. Chew the skin to a 
very fine mass in the mouth, including the royal flesh which 
we have just described. 

When you have eaten further into the apple, you will note 
a decided change in the flavor and the character of the fruit. 
It suddenly becomes more acid; this part and the section sur¬ 
rounding the core are a poison. 

For many years the medical conventions have discussed the 
apple, and have reported their many experiences among their 
patients; about half of the doctors declaring that their patients 
are poisoned by apples, and the other half that they are bene¬ 
fited by them. But where only the skin and the royal flesh 
have been eaten, the results have been uniform; only benefit 
has ensued. But the apple must be ripe and mellow. If ripe 
and not mellow, cooking will not produce the food value, for 
cooking only separates the fruit cells into a soft mass; it does 
not cause them to burst open and discharge their contents. 
This point is so important that we advise you to study and 
master it. 

An un-mellowed apple, or the poison part of a mellow one, 
may cause neuritis, neuralgia, rheumatism, heart pains, and 
organic troubles. 

BANANAS.—These vegetable fruit products should be eaten 
only when dead ripe. When not fully ripe they have been used 
effectively as a remedy for constipation if taken two hours be¬ 
fore breakfast mornings; but their violence as a purgative is 
dangerous, and we do not advise their use for such purpose. 

It is best to eat bananas as an after-meal dish; and sliced in 
cream or rich milk. Eaten very slowly they assist digestion 
wonderfully. If gulped down they are useless. 

Baked sweet apples should also be eaten like bananas; that 
is after a meal, in cream or rich milk, and very slowly. 


128 Complete Life Building 

ORANGES.—This is the first and best of the juice fruits. 

Only fully ripe oranges are valuable; and these should be 
sweet. 

The peel of the orange or the lemon is a poison. 

The custom of using it grated in cooking, or making it a part 
of a marmalade, is the cause of much organic trouble. It is 
true that the English people are very fond of their marmalade; 
but we have never yet seen or heard of a marmalade eater who 
was not a patron of patent medicines, drug stores and doctors. 
Gooseberries are the national hymn of England; and so rheu¬ 
matism is the national malady. It may take that nation an¬ 
other century to learn the fact that they cannot put poisons 
and acids in their blood and get health as the result. They are 
slow to learn because they do not wish to be convinced. 

In the use of oranges a revolution in knowledge has come 
about. 

They were a first course at breakfast or some other meal. 

No fruit should be a first course. 

The only value in an orange is its action on food that is in 
the stomach; and as a first course it leaves the stomach as fast 
as it enters, so that it could not have any value unless it fol¬ 
lowed other eating. Therefore it should be a last course. No 
juice fruit should be eaten on an empty stomach, unless the 
royal juice of a grape be so considered. In eating an orange, 
first discard the peel, and separate the sections; cut these in 
parts, and thoroughly chew each part, swallowing them when 
made into a fine mass. 

GRAPES.—We have already discussed this fruit. No matter 
for what purpose you use grapes, always discard the pulp and 
the seeds. 

APPLES.—Like grapes we have referred to the royal part; 
and need here only say that whatever use you make of grapes, 
always discard the core and the flesh between the core and that 
known as the royal flesh. You may say this is a waste; but it 
really is a money saver. It costs more to rid the body of its 
poisons than it does to throw them away in the first place. 

PEACHES.—These are good food either raw or cooked in 
any way, and especially when preserved. But the skins are not 
useful except in jelly. They should never be eaten on an empty 
stomach; and only following a meal. 


Nature’s Doctors 


129 


PLUMS.—These have but slight value; they are very acid at 
their best. Prunes are kinds of plums, and have only slight 
food value. 

PEARS.—These should never be eaten except after a meal. 
They move the kidneys, sometimes too violently; for which pur¬ 
pose they have served as a natural diuretic. They have this 
medicinal value. 

CHERRIES.—If sweet and fully ripe and eaten after a meal, 
they serve as valuable food. 

Raspberries and cream with sugar, or blackberries in like 
manner, are very valuable if taken at the end of a meal. They 
make also useful preserves; it is best to keep them as near as 
possible to their natural state when putting them up for the 
winter; for which reason the jam and the jelly are not as good 
as the preserves. 

Grapefruit has no food value; and does great harm in time 
to the liver. 

Lemons likewise have no value except where the liver is in¬ 
active; in which case they should be eaten undiluted one hour 
before breakfast, followed by about an hour’s active walking 
in the open air, as briskly as possible. One lemon each morn¬ 
ing and the walk as stated will cure inactive liver in seven 
days. But this is not for the food value of the lemon. If a 
person were to adopt only the TRUE FOODS, there would be 
no need for the lemon. The walk is always a blessing. 

It is an old saying that what is good for one person is not 
always good for another. 

It will be noticed before this book is ended that this saying 
applies only to poisons; and never to the TRUE FOODS. 

Then we come to the fact that what may be a true food, 
may also become a poison if slightly varied. Thus polished 
rice is a poison, but whole rice is one of the most valuable of 
the true foods. The same is true of refined corn, or refined 
white flour, of the interior of potatoes alone, and of many 
fruits. 

The vitality of the human body depends on the mutual action 
of two opposing influences; acids and alkalis. Out of every 
hundred persons, ninety are fully charged with acids; and out 
of this ninety, fully fifty are more than fully charged, but in 
varying and differing degrees. Hence arise the basis of the 


130 


Complete Life Building 

claim that no two persons are alike; and that what is good for 
one may be bad for another. 

If a person has too much acid in his system, the eating of an 
apple even of the royal flesh of the apple, will upset him; the 
first effect being some form of kidney trouble, or neuralgic pain, 
or rheumatism. This is true also of any fruit; and more espe¬ 
cially of tomatoes, cranberries, pie plant, gooseberries, currants, 
and other things whether fruits or not. Acid oranges are very 
bad in such cases. But the most common offender is the apple 
and tomato. 

Tests have been made in thousands of cases with such persons 
and with such things; and it has been proved that rheumatism 
can be made to come or go at will, in small or large degree of 
pain and swelling, in exact proportion to the eating of any one 
of the above articles, and the lesson to be learned is to study 
yourself under the conditions named. 

On the other hand a person whose system does not contain 
too much acid is able to eat tomatoes without injury; or apples, 
pie plant, acid oranges or other things in that line. It all de¬ 
pends on how much natural acid you have in the blood to be¬ 
gin with. But the fact remains that most persons have all the 
acid they can carry safely. 


LARD, NEW BREAD AND PASTRY 


It has been said by one of the wise men of modem times 
that in the art and science of cookery, the three greatest enemies 
of the human health are: 

1. The Prying Pan. 

2. Pastry. 

3. New Bread. 

Some years ago the Chief Chemist of the U. S. Government 
said that in his opinion the three greatest enemies were: 1 , The 

frying pan; 2, Yeast; 3, Pastry. But included in yeast he 
mentioned baking powder. 

NEW BREAD.—While on this subject let us say a word or 
two about the methods employed in raising bread and in mak- 




Nature’s Doctors 131 

ing cake. Baking powder is used for both bread and cake mak¬ 
ing. Yeast is used chiefly for bread making. 

YEAST.—It is a well known fact that bread made from yeast 
is not as wholesome as that made from pure-food baking pow¬ 
der. All books on feeding pets and other animals where bread 
is eaten, say emphatically never to feed new bread, and espe¬ 
cially when made from yeast. One of the most deadly poisons 
is generated by the yeast in bread dough. It takes days for 
all this yeast poison to pass out of the loaf. Patients who have 
been convalescing from sickness have been killed by being given 
yeast made bread. The practice of eating yeast to cure boils 
may be beneficial on the ground that one poison is cured by 
another poison,- but an eighth of a cake is as efficient as a half 
or a whole one, and much less dangerous. But a person who 
eats the TRUE FOODS can never become the victim of a boil, 
carbuncle, tumor, abscess, or cancer. Hence why pay so much 
for so little value as is contained in a yeast cake, the profit on 
which is enormous? 

The best bread is made from what we call pure-food baking 
powder which costs about a cent a pound to make, but which is 
sold for about fifteen cents per pound against the price of forty 
or fifty cents per pound for the impure kinds; thus showing that 
the purest in nature is always the cheapest. 

This pure-food baking powder contains nothing but Starch, 
Bicarbonate of Soda, and Calcium Acid Phosphate: all among 
the most needed of natural food elements; and no other baking 
powder is safe to use. Beware of the word aluminium on the 
cover of a can of baking powder; it is a trick word to conceal 
the word alum, and at the same time to conform to the U. S. 
law to print the names of the ingredients on the package. Alum 
is a very serious poison when it gets into the stomach. 

Bread if home made should be raised with the pure-food bak¬ 
ing powder which is for sale by thousands of stores, and is com¬ 
ing into general use. Then it should be two or three days old 
before it is eaten. But most bread that is made by bakers to¬ 
day is free from the yeast poison, and is fully as good as home 
made bread; especially the kinds on sale by the well known 
chain stores in cities and towns. This too should be two or 
three days old when used. 

Three day old bread made at home or bought at the stores, 


132 Complete Life Building 

should be converted into a digestible food by being toasted 
brown, and buttered while hot. If not intended to be eaten 
buttered, omit the latter, and break the bread into toast cubes, 
and cover with cream and sugar to taste. A very small bit of 
sugar will increase the digestibility of the bread, add to the 
flavor, and bring the cream up to the standard required by 
humanity; but may be omitted if not desired. 

The FRYING PAN is an enemy to health for several reasons. 
In the first place all fried surfaces, or those that come in con¬ 
tact with the pan itself, are indigestible; and that which is in¬ 
digestible is not food, nor can it be made into food. In addi¬ 
tion to having no value, it piles up a mass of poisonous debris 
in the system that breeds disease. As an example, some of this 
debris finds its way to the scalp, and destroys the hair; it also 
gets into the skin and injures the complexion; and it weakens 
the value of the blood, thereby doing harm to every organ. 

But the part played by lard in frying food is likewise a 
source of ill health in very great degree. 

LARD is not only made from certain parts of swine meat, 
but can be extracted from almost any part of the lean portions 
of the hog. This means that when you eat lean ham, lean 
pork, or any other part, you are getting some lard into the 
system. Cooking the raw fat develops the lard most readily. 

The gastric juice in the stomach that is essential to all di¬ 
gestion, WILL NOT MIX WITH LARD. 

While fats are required by the body, nature produces them in 
whole milk, also in cream, and also in butter: these fats are 
not only digested easily but they are all the best kinds of food. 
They make the best blood and furnish life energy to the system. 
Next in value in the fats, are those from steer meat, or young 
beef; then beef of any age; then young mutton; and finally old 
mutton; all these are digestible and food producers. 

MINERAL OIL that is recommended by the syndicate articles 
of doctors in the employ of the oil companies, but under the 
guise of helping the sick, will not mix with any fluid of the 
body; but will lower the vitality to the point at times of causing 
severe chills. Heart failure is one of the results of using this 
poison. 

The vegetable oils as a rule, notably cotton seed oil, butter 
from cotton seed oil, lard from the same, are all direct poisons 


Nature’s Doctors 


133 


and harmful, for the main reason that the gastric juice will not 
mingle with them, nor will the blood adopt them. Olive oil 
may be absorbed by a race of people bom to its use; but very 
few others are able to use it safely, as it soon deranges the 
whole digestive system. Even when tolerated, it requires hours 
and sometimes days to digest it. 

LARD is both palatable and much relished, as is all pork 
flesh. It enters into many uses in frying, and in pastry. But 
the fact remains that the gastric juice refuses to mix with it, 
and the lard does not at any stage become assimilated into the 
blood; yet the blood carries it along as it does many other 
poisons. Tests made of the perspiration at the pores of the 
skin show that lard is thrown off with the exuding sweat; even 
the odor and grease of the lard can be gathered at the pores, 
showing that it has been carried by the blood without being 
made a part of it. 

The tax on the kidneys is enormous when lard is eaten, or 
when the fat of pork in connection with the lean, is eaten. 

When a person is subject to kidney troubles, it is common to 
note a swelling or puffing under the eyes, especially mornings 
following the use of ham, or pork, the day before. Such per¬ 
sons may on some mornings have a very great fullness under the 
eyes, depending on the amount of ham or pork that was eaten 
the day before. Some persons have doubted this fact; but have 
been induced to make observations on the following basis: if 
they have eaten no product of swine for ten days, the puffiness 
under the eyes will disappear; if they indulge on the eleventh 
day in such food as ham or pork, the puffing of the face under 
the eyes will be seen very distinctly on the following morning. 
Then if they omit this kind of food for a few days there will be 
no swelling under the eyes; but it will return again when pork, 
lard or ham is eaten. By these tests, made many times, it is 
easy to convince doubters. 

Most doctors ascribe Bright’s disease of the kidneys to the 
use of beer or alcohol; but it can be traced to indulgence in 
lard or pork in cases where the victims have never tasted beer 
or alcoholic drinks. 

We have seen that acid fruits and acids of any kind, such as 
vinegar, cranberries, pie plant, gooseberries and other things, if 
eaten by a person whose system is fully acid, or over-acid, will 


134 


Complete Life Building 

result in rheumatism, neuralgia, pleurisy and similar maladies. 
Let a person whose system is over-acid eat any of the above 
things and in connection with them, eat any product of swine, 
and the result is GOUT. This beautiful combination is most 
frequent in England where the gooseberry is the national flower 
as well as food, and the wonderful ham is the national meat. 
But the kidneys must be given their shock, which is done twenty 
times a day in England by indulgence in beer that often on an 
average. The total result is puffed eyes, foul kidneys, super¬ 
acid blood, and lard deposits in parts of the body where the 
circulation is the least, as at the feet. 

We refer to pork and ham as forms of lard, because they 
contain fat in their lean parts, and all swine fat is capable of 
being made into lard. 

We have also shown that lard does not mingle with the blood 
as a part of it, but is carried by it to the pores of the skin and 
there lodged or deposited waiting to be thrown off or forced off. 
When it is not easily driven from the skin it remains and de¬ 
cays, causing all kinds of skin irruptions, and finally produces 
boils and carbuncles when the specific germ is found to set up 
its colony in the decayed mass. For this reason it is common 
to refer to boils and carbuncles as “lard flowers,” or “pork 
blossoms. ’ ’ 

It is rather a pitiable arraignment of civilization, this diet of 
poisons! 

PASTRY to the adult taste is like rich cake to the infant 
palate. 

The case of the four girls at a boarding school who received 
a very fine fruit cake from home, and who ate it one evening 
with the result that all four were dead the next day, was inves¬ 
tigated by the authorities in the hope of finding something else 
the cause, as cake had only resulted in sick headaches and stom¬ 
ach troubles in former experiences. But this cake contained 
nothing but the usual ingredients, aided by the usual rich spices, 
dried currants, citron and some grated orange peel mixed with 
cocoanut fibre. All spices are indigestible. All citron is in¬ 
digestible. All cocoanut is indigestible. All dried currants are 
indigestible. All orange peel is indigestible. Eggs cooked into 
cake are indigestible as are also the flour ingredients. In fact 
the whole cake was a dangerous conglomeration. 


Nature’s Doctors 


135 


But it pleased the palate. 

When it was going down to the stomach it tasted about as 
inviting as anything humanly constructed could have tasted. 
Then the stomach replied. 

In an orphan home the head housekeeper visited the depart¬ 
ment of the small children, and gave orders that they should 
not be restricted in what they wished to eat. The order was: 
“Let them have all they want and what they want. The appe¬ 
tite should be the judge. Nature made the appetite and she 
made also the foods.’’ The order was obeyed. On the table 
were placed the following articles: Bread, toast, milk, cream, 
sugar, mashed potatoes, fried potatoes, meat stew,* and fruit 
cake. The children were told to eat what they wished and 
in the order they desired. The first course was fruit cake; the 
second course was fruit cake; the third course was fruit cake; 
then came the call for the doctor. In the investigation that 
followed the housekeeper tried to disclaim her order to permit 
the children to choose their own foods, eat what they wished 
and all they wished. But the proof was too certain. Fourteen 
newly made graves gave her something to think about; and the 
agonies of sick children echoed in her ears. 

That housekeeper is the type of the person who believes that 
the taste should govern our food selection. It is certainly a 
mystery why nature should invite humanity to always prefer 
the things that hurt. But they do. 

What was true of the fatal fruit cake, is true now and al¬ 
ways concerning the craving for pastry. 

It is delicious to the taste. 

It is made of refined flour, which is a poison; and of LARD 
which is not acted upon by the gastric juice of the stomach. 
But it tastes nice. It is inviting as far as the throat; beyond 
that zone there is no sense of enjoyment. The things that we 
most prefer and that hurt, afford no pleasure below the throat. 
The throat, then, does all the craving. Strong men and lofty 
minded women are ruled by that narrow piece of membrane 
known as the throat; and they call it the demand of nature. 
The brain is not consulted. The intelligence is not consulted. 
It is the throat that is the master engineer of the whole body. 
The matinee girls who load up with impure chocolates within 
an hour or so of their evening meal, and then go home with a 


136 


Complete Life Building 

sickly appetite and pose as delicate eaters because they are not 
hungry, are ruled by that narrow stretch of lining in the rear 
of their mouths; and know nothing of the guiding help of the 
brain or its intelligence. They eat what they like and when 
they like. 

It is on this principle that pastry rules the cravings of 
millions of people. 

Pastry has never yet furnished one particle of food to the 
body; but on the other hand it has wrought havoc with the 
stomach, with the blood and with every organ. As a test of the 
delicious taste of things fried in lard, the following experiment 
was made some years ago and has been heretofore published 
in several books: A lot of ordinary sawdust was cooked in the 
frying pan, with lard. It was seasoned with salt and pepper, 
and then served at breakfast to a party of men and women 
who had been used to the good things of the table. Without 
exception they declared it most appetizing. No more harm 
came from it than from the usual indulgence in fried things; 
and it was a week afterward that the guests learned the facts. 
Of course the stomach had a fight to dispose of this sawdust; 
but so has it after every meal in which lard is eaten. The doc¬ 
tor may not be needed at once, but he is waiting around the 
corner, biding his time. 


FACTS ABOUT TEA AND OTHER DRINKS 


Nothing could be more shameful than an unwarranted at¬ 
tempt to deprive the people of their favorite beverage. Tea 
fills in many an aching void. It soothes; it quiets the nerves; 
it lessens the acuteness of unrest; it reduces the vitality of 
pain; it checks the flow of animal energy in the muscles by 
throttling down the nervous intensity; it puts to sleep the 
nerves themselves; it stops the heart from its over-active beat¬ 
ing; it says to the stomach, rest in semi-digestive mood for a 
while; it deadens the nerve centres; it gives to all organs a 
fairly reasonable imitation of what paralysis is like, without in 
fact bringing on paralysis for some years to come. 

These are the good qualities of tea. 

If it has any bad qualities, they consist of two main things: 




Nature’s Doctors 137 

1. This habit of quieting the nerves spreads to all the parts 
of the body that depend on the nerves for their life. 

2. The demands of the body for nerve-quieting tea increase 
as the years go by until it requires much more tea in later years 
than formerly. 

One Hundred Percent of Civilization means that nothing 
shall enter the human body that is not needed to build it. 

Tea contains no food element whatever. 

But it does contain elements that are poisons to the body; 
notably the element that deadens the nerves. Hence it is in two 
ways the enemy of one hundred percent of civilization. The lat¬ 
ter says, what is the use of taking in things that have no part in 
building life; and for a greater reason, what is the use of taking 
in needless things that are affirmatively poisonous? A very 
logical inquiry. 

In addition to the poisoning element that deadens the nerves, 
there are other elements that poison the blood without deaden¬ 
ing the nerves. 

If a baby cries because of pain, three courses are afforded 
the loving mother from which to choose: she can hit the baby 
over the head hard enough to put it to sleep for a long time; 
she can give it some drug to quiet its nerves; or she can study 
the cause of the pain and remove the cause. She generally 
selects the middle course; and in her ignorance she is contented 
for she does not know that every dose of nerve-quieting drug 
is paving the foundation of future paralysis. 

It is civilization not to take into the body something that is 
not needed to build its life; it is civilization to omit the things 
also that do actual harm; but it is quite a drop toward bar¬ 
barism to admit needless stuff, and to admit dangerous stuff, 
while at the same time laying the corner stone of paralysis by 
admitting nerve-quieters. 

Tea enjoys the pleasant status of being a slow poisoner. To 
be sure the U. S. Government in a Bulletin denounced iced tea 
as slow suicide. But one cup does no perceptible harm; in fact 
the injury is such a small fraction of one percent of real danger 
that it cannot be measured. Yet the heart and vital centers 
have been hurt that fraction of one percent, and will never 
again all through life be just as sound again. It requires years 
before the heart gets leaky, the liver stale, the kidneys sluggish, 


138 Complete Life Building 

the lungs weak and the stomach flabby; but they get there just 
the same. 

The BLADDER is about the first organ to furnish evidence of 
the value of quieting the nerves. The contents of the bladder 
are held in place by a certain valve that opens only when the 
will of the mind orders; although some young folks have not 
the power to control it especially in sleep. This valve is depend¬ 
ent on the energy of the nerves to hold it shut. After years of 
having the nerves quieted by tea drinking, they are no longer 
able to keep the bladder valve shut tight. It opens and the 
water of the bladder drips out and saturates the clothing. 

Have you ever entered the room of a house where the tea 
drinking women, and the tea drinking old men are assembled ; 
and have you noticed as you come in from outdoors, the close 
and deadening smell of dripped urine? Even the young folks 
afford this odor if they are tea drinkers and have had their 
nerves quieted to that extent. There is not an old codger living 
to-day who does not wear clothing saturated with this odor if 
he has been a tea drinker; and there is not an old man tea 
drinker with a sound bladder valve. The tea drinking women 
overload themselves with perfumes to conceal the real state of 
their bladder troubles ; but the concealment is never complete. 

Tea given as a beverage to children in their early years, as 
is the custom in many countries, results in permanent bladder 
leakage at night, and often during their active hours; and 
these victims are doctored by other drugs for other causes, and 
so do not become normal. 

The deadening of the nerves, under the claim of quieting 
them, results in real nerve quietude in the course of time. 
Paralysis is one of the three leading methods by which people 
die when they have no chronic illness. 

1. Pneumonia. 

2. Paralysis. 

3. Apoplexy. 

Paralysis may attack the body m whole or m part; or it may 
attack the brain. 

PARESIS, or paralysis of the brain, never had its origin in 
tea drinking; it follows syphilis, acquired or inherited, and is 
always hastened by the craving for cigarettes. 


Nature’s Doctors 


139 


But the heart action is lowered to such an extent by tea drink¬ 
ing that the victim falls easy prey to that malady. So also all 
the nerve centers are made feeble by tea drinking. Out of one 
thousand cases of paralysis of the body, it was found that nine 
hundred and ninety were of persons who were tea drinkers. 

Every person who goes into the water at the public bathing 
places is warned not to do so within an hour or two after eat¬ 
ing; the reason being that paralysis has followed bathing too 
soon after eating; but in every case without an exception it has 
been found, if investigated for the purpose, that the paralytic 
was a tea drinker. In fact we are sure that a non-tea drinker 
could enter the water at any time without harm. 

One doctor in a large city had in one month eleven cases of 
paralysis following a bath too soon after the evening meal, or 
after a late night meal; and in every case he ascertained that 
the victim was a tea drinker. In a town of six thousand people, 
in one year there were seventeen cases of paralysis; and in 
every case the victim was a tea drinker. A very peculiar affair 
came to the attention of a physician of our acquaintance: eight 
men were camping out in very cold weather; and had occasion 
to do some laundry work in a brook nearby; all of the men 
rolled up their sleeves and plunged their hands and arms in the 
ice cold water. One man fell over with a short gasp, paralyzed. 
It is a fact that has been verified in the most careful inquiry, 
that this man was the only tea drinker in the party; and had 
brought his tea along to the camp; while the others brought 
coffee. 

The explanation is: this man had so deadened his nerves by 
the frequent use of tea that they were not able to withstand the 
shock of the sudden exposure to the cold water; it was the last 
spark of vitality in the nerve centers that went out. 


COFFEE 

The greatest living man at the time of this writing, when his 
achievements are considered, is Thomas A. Edison, now nearly 
eighty. Among other things he says that he expects to live to 
be ninety, possibly more; his arteries are as flexible as those of 
a child. He cuts out booze, he says, and tobacco and tea; but 


140 Complete Life Building 

drinks coffee, taking care to have it diluted with hot milk, like 
the French half and half, or cafe au lait. This milk is one of 
the true foods: coffee is much less injurious than tea, if diluted 
with a true food. Its injury is so slight that it may he over¬ 
come by outdoor life and activity in the fresh air; and it leaves 
no after effect like tea. 

But strong coffee, even if cooked but a short time, is a de¬ 
cided poison. 

Long cooked coffee is also a poison. 

Be-cooked coffee is the worst form of this drink. The prac¬ 
tice of leaving the grounds in the coffee pot and adding more 
coffee from time to time is one of the climacteric forms of 
ignorance in an age of barbarism. 

COCOA with milk is a good drink, if pure. 

CHOCOLATE, even the best brands, is not usually found 
pure, and is not a true food, although in an emergency a starv- 
ing person can live on if, but in a state of growing weakness, 
and for only a limited time. It gradually leads to enlargement 
of the liver. But cocoa with milk seems to be free from this 
dangerous tendency. 

Charged drinks, soda waters, and gas waters contain carbonic 
acid, one of the deadliest of poisons; but the acid that is in a 
glass of such a drink has but slight effect, for the reason that it 
passes off in the effervescence; and the only damage it does is 
to dry up the walls of the stomach and make digestion difficult. 
But the continued use of such drinks will lower the vitality of 
the lungs by drying up the natural mucus and exposing the 
tissue to the inroads of germs. 

Experts in tuberculosis have made the statement that this 
malady is often, but not always, started by soda water drink¬ 
ing. They have many thousands of cases to sustain the charge; 
and in addition they point out the fact that the chief work of 
the lungs is to throw out of the blood the carbonic acid; and 
this is a well known function of exhaling, as every outgoing 
breath is laden with a dangerous quantity of this deadly acid. 
Why, then, take in the same acid in the form of a drink ? This 
is the argument, but the proof is seen largely in the great num¬ 
ber of victims of tuberculosis among the drinkers of soda water 
and gas waters, or charged waters, all of which contain car¬ 
bonic acid, the poison that the lungs throw off. 


Nature’s Doctors 


141 


FADS AND FANCIES 


There are many new ideas born every year; and some last 
for quite a while. Let us see what they are; at least the more 
prominent of them. 

VITAMINS, or vitamines as originally called, are intangible 
vital qualities in foods and things that are like food. Our book 
of this Club has referred to them when highly useful as life¬ 
building foods as distinguished from life sustaining foods. 
Thus pasteurized or sterilized milk is life sustaining, but not life 
building; raw milk is the latter, and may be said to contain 
more vitamins. 

On the other hand there are many things that contain vita¬ 
mins that are not good food: thus tomatoes hold the anti-scurvy 
qualities, but contain a poison known as oxalic acid that renders 
them unfit as food, and it is known that they cause more rheu¬ 
matism than any other agency. 

Wheel grease, axle grease and soap grease are richer in vita¬ 
mins by actual tests than any other class of foods; but they are 
not suited to the stomach of civilization. Yet the inhabitants 
of the Arctic zone devour them with the same relish that you 
eat your favorite dish. 

The germs of diphtheria, of typhoid, or small pox and other 
diseases are very highly charged with vitamins; so is the sewer¬ 
age of a great city which fattens our finest oysters; but people 
are not inclined to eat germs or sewerage. 

The lesson to be learned is this: It is not everything that 
contains vitamins that is suited to our table or yours; although 
foods that lack life-building qualities are not the best. Some 
vitaminous foods are very valuable; others are poisons. The 
valuable kinds should not be blamed because their pets turn 
up in bad society. 

Quite a number of years ago the world was flooded with in¬ 
formation concerning the importance of calories. But the idea 
lost its grip on the public mind and has since gone to sleep in 
the same grave that is being dug for vitamins, which will join 
its noble ancestors in the coming on of time. 

A calory is the measure or standard for learning the heat 
production of food. Thus kerosene oil has nearly one hundred 



142 


Complete Life Building 

percent of calories, which gives it a high food value except that 
the human stomach will not digest it. The rule of measure¬ 
ment is this: the amount of heat necessary to raise the tempera¬ 
ture of two quarts of water one degree of the ordinary ther¬ 
mometer, is one calory. Out West when coal is high and corn 
is cheap, the farmers bum the ear corn as fuel. The same corn 
in the human body or in any animal that cares for it, will burn 
chemically and turn itself into heat. This is true of grains, 
fats and other things. 

Fat meats and oils make twice as many calories per ounce as 
the grains. That is why the people of the far North eat blub¬ 
ber and whale oil; they require more heat than we do, and they 
would freeze on a diet of our grains, potatoes and lean meats. 

An ounce of sugar contains one hundred calories; while an 
ounce of bacon contains two hundred calories. An egg contains 
one hundred calories. A baked potato has one hundred; a slice 
of bread one hundred; an ounce of milk only twenty.’ Three 
ounces of lean beef or lamb will have about one hundred calo¬ 
ries, and this is an ordinary helping of meat. A small chop 
has the same number, except pork chops which contain more 
per ounce even if lean. Two medium slices of buttered toast 
have two hundred to three hundred calories. A cup of coffee 
with plenty of cream has from two hundred to three hundred 
calories. 

An ordinary dish of oatmeal with cream and sugar contains 
from four hundred to five hundred calories. 

A half pound of candy has eight hundred calories. Many a 
matinee girl eats this amount during the afternoon; and then 
poses as delicate when she lacks appetite for her evening meal. 
She is pitied, and her fond parents think of putting her under 
the doctor’s care. 

Eight hundred calories! 

The average man needs just about eight hundred calories at 
each of his principal meals, breakfast and noon; but only about 
six hundred for the evening meal. Yet he does not need them 
in such concentrated form as the matinee girl’s afternoon feast • 
nor all of the sugar and starch kind. He requires what are 
called protein foods, with starches, sugars and fats. 

A hard working man needs one thousand calories at each 


Nature’s Doctors 143 

meal. Some need thirteen hundred, or thirty-nine hundred 
each working day. 

The average woman who does not perform much physical 
labor, needs about six hundred three times a day; a total of 
eighteen hundred each day. If she works hard, she needs about 
twenty-five hundred a day. It must be remembered that the 
man or woman who is getting stout is eating too many calories 
daily; for these are the cause of increasing the fat in the body. 
Eat less of this class of food, if you wish to reduce your weight; 
and walk or work more. Every hour of strenuous physical 
activity throws off nearly three hundred calories. 

We have mentioned some of the better foods that contain 
calories; but have neglected to include others that are unfit for 
the human body, such as vegetable oils, lard, fat pork, crisp 
foods, and a score or more of indigestible articles, all of which 
contain these things in as liberal quantity as do cream and 
butter. 

In some restaurants the menu cards tell the calories of each 
order of food; but such measurements are worse than useless. 
Buckwheat cakes and com bread are both rich in this quality; 
but both are low grade foods for the present race of people. 
They furnish heat, but set up irritation of the skin and blood. 
Buckwheat is not a staying food; and refined corn meal is an 
irritant. The meal from the whole corn grain, including the 
germ, is not obtainable to-day. If it were, we should have an 
ideal food for winter weather, but too heating for summer. 
But the presence of calories in great number does not of itself 
make the food valuable for our climate. 

Axle grease is exceedingly rich in calories and even more so 
in vitamins; a barrel of it in the polar regions would be the 
most welcome of all gifts, and it is true that the inhabitants 
there have eaten worse things than wagon grease. But such 
food would kill others. 

There are three kinds of calories; and three kinds of vita¬ 
mins; some foods that contain calories, possess no vitamins 
whatever; but the reverse is not true. We find calories in three 
classes of food: those that build the body, those that give it im¬ 
mediate energy, and- those that store away energy. These three 
classes include: 


144 Complete Life Building 

1. Foods and so-called foods that are chemically related to 
the body, but that are not assimilated by the body. 

2. Foods that are suited to the needs of life, that build new 
life, and that heal a body that is in imperfect health; because, 
in addition to being chemically fit, they are naturally fit also. 

It will thus be seen that what chemistry says is food, is not 
always suited to the body. The Ralston Health Club depends 
on the results of actual tests, rather than the claims of the 
chemist; but does not oppose the latter as far as the true foods 
are concerned. 

The word vitamine was made up out of two ideas by a Pole 
named Casimir Funk. The first part, as is seen at a glance, 
relates to the life value; and the second part to the chemical 
value. When the two combine, we have what we term the 
TRUE FOODS; and as they play the most important part in 
this book, we need not enter into a dry technical discussion of 
them, as this would weary the reader. 

AUTO-SUGGESTION.—In the agony of a need of curative 
help the masses of semi-intelligent people and some who are 
intelligent bought a book containing a list of cases where mar¬ 
vels of cure were effected by suggestion; sometimes self-sug¬ 
gestion; but in most cases inspired by others. As far as any 
real results were achieved they followed the teachings of the 
great system which has been brought into a practical method 
of use in a book now quite well known under the name of 
“Other Mind.” 

The basis of cure is an appeal to the imagination as stronger 
than the will power; but imagination will not build a marble 
mansion out of common bricks, nor a well body out of food poi¬ 
sons. Faith systems of cure have sense enough to order the use 
of proper foods and habits. We kept track in many ways of 
the results of auto-suggestion, and curative suggestion, and in 
no instance were permanent benefits secured unless the diet 
laid the foundation of a better body. 

Any person who wishes to do so may begin by reforming the 
diet according to the teachings of this Club; then may add all 
kinds of suggestion as an aid to the quick disappearance of dis¬ 
ease, and we believe that marvels and miracles will happen in 
the most astounding manner; but omit the improvement in the 
diet, and all else will fail utterly. 


Nature’s Doctors 


145 


Special Exercises.—Why exercise and scatter the blood 
through the body when it is carrying a load of poisons? Is it 
not much more sensible to build pure blood and send that to all 
parts for the benefit of the general health? Therefore when 
exercises are advertised for the cure of disease, it is better first 
to lay the foundation for good health by attention to the mate¬ 
rial on which a perfect body is built; for the kind of material 
employed in making the human body determines the kind of 
health it will possess. 

THE SPARK OF LIFE.—At the top of the spine in the 
back of the neck is a small world of life, tiny but great in 
power. From this seat of vital force there emanate three sets 
of wires in the form of nerves and these nerves or electrical 
wires that run: 

TO THE RESPIRATORY ORGANS AND CONTROL 
THEM. 

TO THE HEART AND CONTROL THE CIRCULATION. 

TO THE STOMACH AND ALL DIGESTIVE ORGANS 
AND CONTROL THEM. 

The diet of this spark of life is calcium and chlorine. Any 
scientific expert in this line of study, and most doctors, will tell 
you that without these two elements the heart cannot beat, the 
lungs cannot breathe and the digestive tract cannot convert 
food into blood. Therefore we call calcium and chlorine the 
foods of the spark of life. Some experts insist that chlorine 
alone has this honor of being the source of life. 

A blow on this part of the spine will cause diabetes; and the 
connection between the top of the spine and the abdominal con¬ 
tents seems remote. A violent bending of the same part of the 
spine will at once stop the heart from beating. Pressure will 
cause the lungs to cease breathing. Stretching normally up¬ 
ward in the effort to add an inch to the height of the body, so 
that the top section of the spine, which is the base of the brain, 
is given the stimulus of the pull upward, will increase the 
power of the heart-beats and send new warmth to the extremi¬ 
ties; by which method the circulation of the blood has been 
carried to the feet and hands and given them a natural tem¬ 
perature, not only once but in many experiments. 


146 


Complete Life Building 

Here we have the marvel of life. 

After you have eaten a hearty meal, if a blow is given to this 
part of the spine, digestion will cease at once and not be re¬ 
sumed for some time. But if instead of the blow, your brain 
sends to this spark of life some unpleasant news that affects it 
like a physical blow, but by the mental blow in fact, digestion 
will at once cease; and everybody knows that bad news stops 
digestion. Bad news enters through the major brain, and is 
transferred to the spinal section. Not only does it interfere 
with digestion, but it also depresses the heart, and ehecks the 
lung action; showing the triple connection between these func¬ 
tions and the spark of life. 

A person may be hungry and not be able to eat because of 
lack of appetite. Many a person who is hungry and who has a 
fine appetite, has lost it by hearing bad news just before a meal. 
Digestion must be sustained by a real appetite in order to do 
its best. It is said that the mind controls the health; but the 
fact is that the mind controls the spinal section which holds the 
spark of life; and the latter controls the health; for that which 
directs the functions of digestion, respiration and circulation, 
really directs the whole machinery of life. 

Worry is nearly always unnecessary; yet it has killed health, 
body and mind. We cite the case of diabetes because cause and 
effect are most easily connected. This almost incurable malady 
has three causes: 

1. A physical blow on the top of the spine. 

2. Worry. 

3. Drinking water from surface sources, as rivers, ponds, 
lakes and brooks. 

A specialist in diabetes stated that, of every hundred cases 
that came under his observation, sixty-five percent or more had 
their origin in worry; five were due to physical injury to the 
top of the spine; and thirty came from some unknown cause. 

As worry is a disease of the mind it follows that the mind 
must communicate with the spinal section containing the spark 
of life, and this section must disturb the digestive functions of 
the abdomen in a manner that causes diabetes. 

Worry is a mental disease that can be gradually overcome by 
the acquisition of good physical health; for the poisons that 


Nature’s Doctors 


147 


we are fighting in this Club affect the brain and the mind. 

MENTAL POISONING.—Doctors who make a study of the 
insane patients in asylums as well as in their private practice, 
agree that what is known as TOXIC POISONING in the ali¬ 
mentary canal may cause insanity; and they have issued state¬ 
ments of cases that are known to have arisen from this source. 
Their treatment consists in prescribing only food that is abso¬ 
lutely pure, and they insist that such food shall be perfectly 
balanced; that is, contain all the fourteen needed elements of 
the body. The absence of even one needed element makes a 
cure impossible. Says a leading alienist, or insanity expert: 
1 ‘It is too well known that this malady is steadily increasing; 
and I do not hesitate to say that much of it is due to toxic poi¬ 
soning from improper diet.” You cannot carry these poisons 
in the system and put them into circulation in the blood with¬ 
out saturating the brain with them; for the whole flow of blood 
of the entire body passes into and through the brain and washes 
that organ with its evil fluid. 

Therefore if you wish a sound mind, get a sound body by 
securing a completely balanced diet of the fourteen food 
elements. 

THE IMAGINATION.—This quality is more powerful than 
the will; for the latter makes up its mind to do a certain thing 
whether it believes it can do it or not; while the imagination 
believes that it can do it; and what a person fully believes con¬ 
trols him. This quality is in and of the mind. Now it is well 
proved that the mind controls the spark of life. If therefore 
the imagination becomes strong enough to sway the mind it 
will reach out and sway the spark of life, through which it 
will sway the whole body; and by this means a person who has 
an overpowering belief in any method of attaining health will 
reach the realization of his belief. This explains why certain 
great influences have produced seeming miracles. 

But our advice is to adopt two courses: 

1. Build a perfect body by perfect foods. 

2. Turn the mind around until it faces the rising sun of a 
bright, optimistic, beautiful day. 


148 


Complete Life Building 

FACTS THAT ARE NEW 


Countless experiments are going on in all parts of the ac¬ 
tively progressing world, with the purpose in view of avoiding 
sickness and prolonging life. New knowledge is therefore to 
be expected. When we say that some facts are new, we mean 
new to humanity. The Western Hemisphere was called the new 
world although it was as old as the old world when it was 
discovered. 

Things that are partly old and partly new, are regarded in 
the latter class if their uses are of greater value to humanity 
than ever before under some recently made discovery. 

But we do not teach ideas that are new when the proof of 
their truthfulness has not been well established. Thus it is 
being claimed by many reputable investigators that the vitality 
of a plant or animal is a tangible ether mass. We do not teach 
this, for we do not know that it is true. We did teach thirty- 
five years ago that there were two atmospheres; one inside of 
the other; and that the interior one was what is now called the 
ether, which fills all space and connects the sun and planets 
with each other. Wireless telegraphy makes use of this interior 
atmosphere, and its existence is universally acknowledged. 

The body of a dying person has been weighed just before 
death and just after; and an appreciable difference has been 
found in the weight. This experiment has been made many 
times; and so important has it seemed that scientists insisted 
on placing scales under the cot of a dying person and observ¬ 
ing the instant drop in the weight just at that second of time 
when the physician noted the actual passing out of the life. 

Other experiments have been made to the effect that some¬ 
thing semi-tangible passes out and floats away. While these 
claims seem well proved, the conclusion insisted upon that life 
is a vital mass of ether substance is not sustained. It may be 
true or it may be mere guesswork. 

But, to speak in more ready language, every human being is 
subject to two tides of vitality in every twenty-four hours. 

1. The FIRST TIDE begins feebly at midnight and increases 
gradually up to mid-day, or twelve o’clock noon. It is known 
as the ELIMINATING TIDE. 

2. The SECOND TIDE begins feebly at noon and increases 



Nature’s Doctors 149 

gradually up to mid-night. It is known as the ACCUMULAT¬ 
ING TIDE. 

These two tides have been recently discovered, but their ex¬ 
istence and operation are fully proved, and they verify the 
many hundreds of well known facts in the life and health of 
the body. 

The names will seem misleading when we say that elimina¬ 
tion creates vitality and accumulation destroys vitality. This 
is due to the fact that the act of living is the act of transform¬ 
ing nutrition into life; and this can be done only by eliminat¬ 
ing the source of nutrition, which is food, by changing it into 
vital energy; just as the fuel put into a furnace by being con¬ 
sumed is turned into power that moves great engines and 
machinery. The fuel spends itself, and by so doing generates 
energy. The more vitality it creates, the more waste material 
it eliminates. 

Two simple tests have been made thousands of times, always 
with the same result: 

1. Persons who eat heartily at morning and less heartily at 
noon, and lightly at evening, all other things being equal, never 
accumulate fat or become over-stout. They eliminate all they 
eat. 

2. Persons who eat lightly at morning, and heartily at noon, 
and heavily at the evening meal, all other things being equal, 
invariably accumulate flesh and add weight to excess. They 
accumulate what they eat. 

Persons who omit their morning meals are always in bad 
health to begin with, or they would not make this omission. By 
eating at noon and night enough to satisfy their hunger, they 
add weight and become flabby. 

Persons who eat heartily mornings and a proper meal at 
noons and omit the evening meals, become thin very soon. The 
reason is plain: they eliminate all they eat. If any meal is to 
be omitted it should never be the morning meal, always that of 
the evening, if one seeks to avoid becoming fat; on the con¬ 
trary, by omitting breakfast and eating heartily at noon and 
evening, the natural result must be increase of weight; and 
facts prove this to be the case. 

Sleep or profound rest taken for any period long or short 
before the noon meal, occurs during the eliminating period, and 


150 


Complete Life Building 

is sure to calm the nervous system and prepare the way for 
digesting a good meal at noon time. 

But if the sleep or profound rest occurs soon after the noon 
meal, it takes place in the accumulating period, and tends to 
make the body sluggish, and assists in adding weight. There 
have been thousands of tests of this fact, and it has been abun¬ 
dantly proved; and it is a very easy thing for any person to 
prove who is so situated that sleep can be sought soon after 
the noon meal. 

If you have done hours of hard work with the brain or body 
prior to the noon meal, and should go tired to the table, the 
food becomes a poison, even the best of things. Five minutes 
or more of perfect rest in a reclining position, will counteract 
this poison. The reason will be stated later on in its proper 
place. 

Hard physical activity of an exhausting character after a 
heavy meal will completely stop digestion. Bad news also will 
do the same thing because the nervous shock from bad news 
prevents the flow of gastric juice to the stomach. If you have 
eaten heavily, instead of working it off by severe physical ef¬ 
fort as in a brisk walk, it is better to rest half an hour and then 
take a gentle walk. 

Digestion is largely a nervous energy at work in the stomach; 
and when the tax is heavy on the nervous system, the brain is 
agitated and slightly inflamed. For this reason it is not possi¬ 
ble to sleep for several hours or possibly all night after a hearty 
meal. The light supper is by far the best. Muscle making 
foods, such as meats, cheese, old peas, beans and the like will 
over-excite the system all night if eaten late in the day; the 
muscles will twitch, the nerves will jump, and the brain will be 
afire with irritation. For this reason the evening meal should 
be not only a light one, but should not contain any muscle mak¬ 
ing foods. 

The vitality of the body travels. 

If the stomach is empty and has been empty for hours, when 
you retire at night, the vitality will have traveled to the brain; 
and this vitality will keep you awake. For this reason it is 
wicked to send children to bed without their suppers; and it is 
much better to give them a bite on retiring if they really want 
it. Grown up persons who fail to sleep at nights, will generally 


Nature’s Doctors 


151 


cure the trouble by eating something just as they get into bed. 

Here are some of the parts of the body to which the vitality 
travels: 

1. When the stomach is empty, as has just been stated, the 
vitality will travel to the brain if the muscles are at rest; which 
accounts for the reason why a person cannot go to sleep ordi¬ 
narily on an empty stomach. 

2. When the body is at' rest and the stomach has some trifling 
bit of wholesome food to digest, the vitality will leave the brain 
and go to the stomach; which accounts for the fact that sleep 
is invited by this experiment. 

3. When the stomach is full, and the brain is severely taxed 
with some deep problem or hard mental labor, the vitality will 
travel to the brain, and the food will not be digested. 

4. When the stomach is full, and the muscles are severely 
taxed with hard physical labor, the vitality will travel to the 
muscles and the food will not be digested. 

The best mental labor is done in the morning on an empty 
stomach; and the best physical labor is done on a light meal, or 
when the stomach is empty. Soldiers who have been regularly 
and properly fed, fight better on an empty stomach if they are 
not weak from loss of food. It is claimed that Napoleon re¬ 
versed this rule, as he began his battles as soon as possible after 
his soldiers had eaten; but before a battle he gave orders for 
light rations. His motto was that his men should be well shod 
and well fed at all times, which was a very good one. But 
nevertheless it is a provable fact that a fully fed soldier can 
neither march nor fight at his best; but this means immediately 
after a full meal. 

GROWTH TAKES PLACE ONLY DURING SLEEP. 

No one grows when awake. 

The baby that remains wakeful day after day never adds an 
ounce of weight. If it sleeps only eight hours in twenty-four 
it merely repairs what it loses in the involuntary processes of 
life within its body. For every hour more than eight daily, it 
grows, and adds to its weight. The very new infant needs 
about twenty-two hours daily; later on, twenty; and still later 
on, eighteen hours. This time is reduced gradually as it grows, 
until at the age of ten it needs about ten hours; at the age of 


152 Complete Life Building 

fourteen nine hours; at the age of eighteen eight and a half 
hours; and after twenty-one, only eight hours until he is sixty 
years old; assuming the health is normal. 

The principle is this: At any age a period of eight hours ’ 
sleep will merely repair normal waste following normal activity 
and the average amount of food of a wholesome and nutritious 
character. Therefore in order to carry on growth or increase of 
weight, it is necessary to sleep more than eight hours. This 
explains why when some persons eat lightly they still go on 
gaining in weight; they are sleeping more than eight hours. 

Now comes the influence of the accumulating tide which be¬ 
gins at noon and ends at midnight; any excess of sleep during 
this accumulating period will quickly add to the weight. By 
actual test made in many thousands of cases, the best method 
for reducing the weight, is to eat seventy-five percent of the 
daily food during the eliminating tide or before noon; the re¬ 
maining twenty-five percent during the accumulating tide, or 
better between late afternoon and midnight; omit all sleep up 
to eleven o’clock or twelve, and take only six or seven hours’ 
sleep, and all after midnight. 

There have been many thousands of cases of excessive fat that 
have not yielded to the usual treatment prescribed by physi¬ 
cians which is to eat less and exercise more; which have been 
cured by sleeping less, and eating very little between noon and 
midnight. 

On the other hand there have been many thousands of other 
cases where thin persons have been unable to gain in weight 
despite the most careful adherence to the rules laid down for 
that purpose; who have accomplished the desired result by re¬ 
versing the above methods. They should get nine hours’ sleep, 
of which four hours should occur before midnight. They 
should eat less muscle-making food and more of the fuel kind; 
and their chief eating should occur afternoons and evenings, 
which is during the accumulating tide. 

The TWIN SECRETS OF LIFE are summed up as follows: 

1. Study and re-study and even memorize this group of 
FACTS THAT ARE NEW. 

2. Turn to the great chapter on the TRUE FOODS and 
make the knowledge of them your perpetual guide. 



EIGHTH SECTION 


A NEW BODY 


S OW COMES the great inquiry, what shall we do with 
the body that lacks perfect health? What shall we 
do with the temple that holds more bad material 
than good in its composition? The medicine that 
we take adds nothing; most of it drives away, by a 
rough process, a portion of the accumulated decay that floods 
all the organs and tissue. Five hundred years ago, the doctor 
said: “You must get rid of a lot of bad blood and matter in your 
body; and then it is time to use better material to take the place 
of what you drive off.” 

The theory was perfect. 

The same theory prevailed five thousand years ago. We sum 
it up and see that it looks right: 

1. Get rid of the bad. 

2. Re-build with the good. 

If you were to live ten thousand years* hence, that theory 
could not be improved upon. First get rid of the bad; then 
build with the good material. 

In the whole history of medicine the one effort has been made 
to get rid of the bad. As the bad circulated largely in the 
blood, they bled the patient. George Washington was bled to 
death by doctors, and under a method that was centuries old. 
It shows how close we stand to the barbaric past. They bled 
the sick with lances. Then they bled them with leeches; and 

153 













154 Complete Life Building 

these blood-sucking worms were cultivated and sold to doctors 
in great numbers all through the civilized world. If you pick 
up a book of the old times, you will see the doctors called leeches. 
To “send for the leech” meant to send for the doctor. 

By the blood-letting method a large part of the blood was 
let out of the body; and as far as it contained bad matter, that 
too went out; but the same proportion of bad matter remained 
in the body, which could not be let out as the patient would die 
from lack of blood. This barbaric practice in time yielded to 
the rising sun of better sense. 

It was finally agreed that there was much bad matter that 
could be forced out through the skin; so sweating was resorted 
to, and soaking of the feet accomplished a part of the same end. 

It was also known that the digestive tract contained a great 
accumulation of poisonous matter; and this could be physicked 
out by physics; and the doctors were ever afterward called 
physickers, or physicians; and are so called even unto this day. 

The double method has never prevailed in fact; for, as soon as 
the bad matter was got out, or as much of it as was possible to 
get out, the same bad habits of eating were retained. Of what 
use is it to remove the decay from a temple and bring in more 
decay? It is only when a patient is convalescent that care is 
taken in the selection of food; after that stage is passed it is 
understood that no care is necessary. For this half-used method 
the world has paid the penalty of being constantly physicked. 
Ninety million people in this country last year took physic. 
The pill habit is everywhere prevalent. Look in your daily 
papers and read the advertisements telling of the merits of 
endless kinds of physic. Where is the good old castor oil of 
our youth? What millions yearly use its offspring, castoria, a 
household word ? What millions use another remedy for 
clogged systems? What millions use still another purgative? 
What other millions use the pills that work while you sleep? 
What other millions use the fig preparations to loosen the 
bowels? What other millions use this, that or the other? Why, 
in a city of less than five hundred thousand people a WHOLE 
CAR-LOAD of physicking medicine enters EVERY WEEK 
IN THE YEAR, year in and year out! And this is true in 
the same ratio all over the country. 

Why are these physicking medicines taken? 


Nature’s Doctors 


155 


To drive out of the body the material that should never have 
been put in it. In every million dollars that is spent for food, 
there is a value of nine hundred thousand dollars that must be 
physicked out of the body to ward off sickness. Surely we do 
not live in an age of intelligent civilization, when nine dollars 
in every ten must be physicked out after it has been eaten. 
This practice is universal. As a doctor recently said: “I have 
practiced my profession for forty-seven years. In that time 
the people have put unfit food into their bodies and physicked 
and sweated them out; then more unfit food has been put in, 
and driven out; then more in, and out; in and out; in and out; 
in and out; and this see-saw game of life has been the steady 
occupation of the human race.” 

If you are sick and send for a doctor the first thing he does 
is to 11 clean you out.” This he does by medicines that act on 
the bowels and on the skin; he physicks and sweats you. Both 
these methods are weakening. They both take a lot of the good 
with the bad, and you need all the good you can get. Physick¬ 
ing is only a slight improvement on bleeding. 

But what is the remedy? 

If once you were really cleaned out, the thing to do is to 
avoid getting filled up again with dead tissue and poison mat¬ 
ter. But until you can get cleaned out, it is useless to talk of 
that. Yet the sweating and physicking do not clean you out 
in the one way that is needed; for your organs, your blood, 
your tissue, your bones, your skin, your nerves, are all clogged 
with dead tissue; and the plan of emptying your bowels does 
not reach the main zone of the trouble. Nor will sweating. 
There is but one true way and it is as old as humanity itself. 

Some hasty readers may believe, because we mention a fact, 
that we advocate it. You must read far enough to find out 
the difference between a statement of history and a recommen¬ 
dation of the thing referred to. For thousands of years the 
practice of fasting has been employed as the only possible way 
of cleaning out the poisons of the body and its organs and 
tissue. This method is probably as near to nature as anything 
can be. It reaches every part, large and small, near and far, 
in the whole body, while physicking and sweating reach certain 
avenues only. In fasting, all parts give up some portions of 
themselves, and the broken down parts are first disposed of and 


156 Complete Life Building 

cast off. No decay or poison is omitted. All must go. When 
the fasting is continued beyond the poison stage, the main 
strength of the body must go; and that is where fasting begins 
to do harm. Nature never intended it to be used to tear down 
good structure. 

So necessary has this method of cleaning out the system been 
to the life and safety of the body itself, and so reluctant have 
people been to practice it, that every religion on earth from the 
beginning of records and long before, in all probability, has 
incorporated in its requirements the practice of fasting. Read 
the commands of any sect you please, in this or any age where 
religion was supreme master of the lives of the people, and you 
will find fasting taught and made imperative. No theology has 
existed without it. 

There are several kinds of fasting. 

One method includes many weeks. 

Another method includes many days. 

Another method includes one day in every week. 

Then a set of leaders advises the omission of the supper all 
the time in order to prepare the body for a breakfast appetite. 

Still another set of leaders advises the omission of every 
breakfast in order to clean out the body before the noon meal 
is taken. 

Others advise the omission of the noon meal on the theory 
that two meals a day are enough. 

Here are the results that have been secured by thousands of 
experiments covering many years: 

1. The fast that requires weeks of denial of food ruins the 
body, mind and vitality; and there is never a case of complete 
recovery from it. If the purpose is to subdue the energies of a 
resistant follower, the plan is perfect. Earthly hopes recede 
and the hereafter is the only solace to the long-term faster. 
This is rebellion against the laws of nature. During the period 
of development and ripening in this world, every human being 
must be loyal to the great mother that has bestowed life. The 
human body is a temple that cannot be maltreated in the hope 
of rewards hereafter. There is no more reason for torturing 
the beautiful child than there is for torturing the useful and 
noble manhood and womanhood that unfolds its character on 
this planet. 


Nature’s Doctors 


157 


2. The fasting that embraces a period of many days is wrong 
when it reaches that dividing line where the poisons have been 
thrown out of the body, and the main structure is being torn 
down. The purpose of fasting ends when it ceases to be a 
cleanser. 

3. The plan of fasting one day in every Week, by wholly 
omitting all food, is sure to ruin the mind and nerves. All 
fasting is useless unless it is followed by the process of re¬ 
building a new body of new and better material. One fasting 
is enough; for, after that is over, the cleansed body should be 
rebuilt in such a way that no more cleansing is necessary. This 
failure to build anew with perfect material is the ONE GREAT 
ERROR of all time. Why should you clean a house if you are 
to bring back the dirt as soon as the cleaning is done? Why 
fast, if you are to go along in the old ruts, and eat the very 
things that you are trying to get out of the body? Why take 
physic and drive off the poisons, if you are to keep on eating 
the very things that produce the poisons? 

4. The omission of all the suppers is an equal error. It im¬ 
plies that the poisons are to be driven out by fasting, with no 
regard for the kind of food that is to follow. Omitting one 
supper is the cure for a failing appetite in the morning; for no 
person is healthy who lacks a morning appetite. The word 
breakfast came from two words, break fast, and the fast broken 
was the long interval between the supper and the meal of the 
following morning; generally twelve hours or more. The per¬ 
son who has no appetite for breakfast, gets very hungry towards 
evening and overeats at a time when the least eating is neces¬ 
sary. What you take into your stomach at the evening meal, 
may still be there at.the morning; or, if not in the stomach it¬ 
self, may be sluggishly moving along the digestive tract, in 
which case it is impossible to eat a proper breakfast. The cure 
of this abnormal and morbid condition is not the omission of 
the evening meal, but changing its foods to those that digest 
quickly, and all in harmony, with the quantity reduced. There 
is no greater folly than the eating of long-time foods in the 
evening; let them all be of the ONE-HOUR CLASS; one kind 
of food only at each meal, and not too much of that. You will 
find that this method will fully take the place of the evening 
fasting, for it is a cleaning process equal to the best fast. 


158 Complete Life Building 

5. The plan of omitting the breakfast, which prevailed some 
years ago, killed the inventor of it, and ruined all persons who 
adopted it. It sought to turn the laws of eating upside down; 
to omit the power-supply of the day, which should precede the 
day ’s energies; and to bulge into bigness the clogging meal, 
which is the heavy dinner at the end of the afternoon or early 
in the evening. If you cannot eat more than one meal in a 
day, let it be the meal that gives the power to work on; which 
is the breakfast. Napoleon used to give his soldiers a full meal 
before a battle; the old theory was: feed them after the battle, 
as there will not be so many to feed, and hungry soldiers fight 
more savagely. Theories are not so safe as facts. Napoleon 
learned that food gave strength on which to march and to fight, 
and he won his battles until his own body was wrecked by an 
incurable disease that made his campaigns too arduous for him 
to combat the growing power of his enemies. Most doctors say: 
eat to repair the waste. The fact is, the waste does not need 
repairing, for that means the clogging of the system. Activi¬ 
ties carry off the dead tissue; rest piles them up and makes 
fasting and physicking necessary. No repairs are required un¬ 
til the dead material has been removed. The reasons for eating 
are: 

1. In the morning eat to supply the fighting strength for the 
battle of the first half of the day. Life’s duties and activities 
are the battle. 

2. At noon eat to supply the fighting strength for the battle 
of the last half of the day. 

3. At the evening meal eat ONLY to supply the strength 
to carry on the involuntary functions of the organs until the 
next morning: circulation, respiration, the engines of the skin- 
pores, the waves of intestinal motion, the beating of the heart, 
the work of the kidneys, of the liver and other parts; these are 
to be given their power by the evening meal; and there is no 
other energy needed unless you are a night-worker. Never 
think of repairing waste tissue during rest. You cannot repair 
a clogged body. 

Use the material that you eat, after you eat it, and do not 
imagine that you can use it before you eat it. You will not 
have a clogged system if you eat to give strength to the activi¬ 
ties that are to follow. 


Nature’s Doctors 


159 


HOW TO BUILD A NEW BODY 

There are two steps to be taken in building an entirely new 
body: 

1. Get rid of the old material. 

2. Use nothing but good material ever after. 

In the past, the many methods of getting rid of the old mate¬ 
rial were only half-way means; but, even then, they were not 
followed by the use of perfect material. No attention was paid 
to the kinds of food that were eaten. People physicked and 
sweated out of their bodies ninety-five* percent of all the food 
they put in. And now the cry is, fast and starve, in order to 
get rid of the bad; but no thought is given to what kind of food 
is to follow when the bad is out. 

Take your own body for instance: It is necessarily filled 
with broken down tissue; every organ, bone, nerve, muscle, and 
cubic inch of flesh is the storehouse of waste matter. It could 
not be otherwise, for change is going on every second and 
change means the tearing down of the life that has been built 
up. If you have never built a new body, you have that task to 
perform. If you perform that task, you will then possess a new 
body, but you will not retain it unless you supply it with mate¬ 
rial that is free from the imperfections of the past. 

Buie 71 .—The best goal of earthly life is a perfect body. 

Buie 72 .—The quickest way for a person who is not well to 
secure good health is by building a new body. 

Buie 73 .—Health that seems perfect is not perfect until the 
body is built anew. 

Buie 74 .—Immunity from sickness, disease and contagion can 
be secured only by building a new body. 

Buie 75 .—The human body that has not been built new is the 
seat of disease-breeding soil, and* it is only a question of time 
when disease* or contagion will enter it. 

Buie* 76 .—When the body is built new, all disease-breeding 
soil is* removed ancl should remain away forever. 

Buie 77 .—The first step in building a new body is taken when 
a fast is employed to drive out all the waste soil that is present 
in the body. 


160 Complete Life Building 

Rule 78. —The fast should be just long enough to get rid of 
the broken, down tissue, and no longer. 

Rule 79. —The second step in building a new body is taken 
when all congested tissue is healed. 

Rule 80. —The third step in building a new body is taken 
when the repair of the wasted parts is made by the introduc¬ 
tion of perfect material. 

Rule 81. —The fourth and final step in building a new body is 
taken when a permanent diet is established that will not per¬ 
mit any of the Enemies of Life to secure a new hold on the 
system. 

THE FIRST STEP 

OMIT THREE MEALS.—These three meals are to be suc¬ 
cessive; and all on one day. Drink nothing but water, and all 
you want of that. The last meal before the fast is to be at 
about six o’clock in the evening. After that meal, eat nothing 
that night, and nothing the next day or night; so that you may 
be sure of thirty-six hours of no eating. The first meal to be 
eaten is on the morning following the day of fast, and not 
earlier than six or seven o’clock. 

SLEEP ALL YOU CAN.—It is better to begin-the fast after 
supper on a Saturday evening, so that you can get sleep on 
Sunday during the day, for a few hours at least, as well as at 
night. 

EXERCISE WHEN NOT SLEEPING.—Assuming that you 
are able to take some exercise, such as standing, walking, or 
other action, while not sleeping, it is best to adopt this prac¬ 
tice to the fullest extent of your strength. If you are weak, 
move about but little. But if you are strong, make your body 
as active as possible. 

THE SECOND STEP 

HEALING THE CONGESTED TISSUE.—There can be no 
broken down matter in the body unless it is attended by some 
degree of congestion; for, wherever that dead matter touches, 
it poisons the parts. When you remove it, the parts are left 
still congested but free from their life long enemy. The work 
of healing those congested surfaces is the step now to be taken. 
Pure albumin is the only direct and instant healer of congested 


Nature’s Doctors 


161 


tissue. The only form of pure albumin is found in the white of 
an egg. This will heal a sore throat, sore stomach, sore intes¬ 
tines, sore lungs, sore breathing-passages, and all inward sore¬ 
ness in the body. Such soreness is often without pain. 
Whether you think you possess it or not, the method is the same: 

FIRST NEW MEAL.—On the morning after the day of fast¬ 
ing, drink cool water freely; then take into the mouth the 
white of a raw egg, holding the white in the mouth and throat 
as long as possible. Then very slowly drink a little cool water. 
Wait three or four minutes, and take another, white of an egg 
in the same way. Again wait three or four minutes and take 
the white of a third egg in the same way. Repeat until the 
whites of five raw eggs have been taken. Do not throw the 
yolks away. Cook them hard, and keep them for future use. 
They are splendid tissue builders. During the forenoon drink 
as much water as you crave. 

SECOND NEW MEAL.—At noon of the same day, drink 
some water. Then take a whole raw egg beaten or whipped in 
a third of a glass of new milk that has not been boiled or steril¬ 
ized. Swallow each mouthful very slowly, until this has been 
all taken. Rest five minutes; drink water; then take a second 
raw egg beaten in a third of a glass of new milk. Rest five 
minutes; drink; and take a third of a glass of new milk. Dur¬ 
ing the afternoon, drink as much water as you crave. 

THIRD NEW MEAL.—At about six o’clock in the after¬ 
noon, repeat the noon meal in exactly the same way prescribed 
above. During the evening drink as much water as you desire. 
This first day after fasting consists of healing foods. 

CAUTION.—If your stomach is badly congested the use of 
healing foods may produce temporary ill-feeling, and possibly 
dizziness or unpleasant sensations. This is overcome by drink¬ 
ing water freely just before taking the raw eggs. 

THE THIRD STEP 

REPAIRING THE WASTED PARTS.—The second day 
after the fast is to consist of new material that is specially de¬ 
signed to carry on a system of repair in a perfect manner. 
This requires some good round steak that is lean, sweet and 
fresh. 


162 Complete Life Building 

FOURTH NEW MEAL.—This is the breakfast on the second 
day after the fast. Take, on the day before, a few pounds of 
lean round steak, and put them in a glass jar, adding a cupful 
of cold water for every pound of meat. This will be put in the 
glass jar. Now set the jar in a kettle of water on the back of 
the stove where it will slowly heat but not boil. Let it remain 
for an hour or two. Then strain the contents of the jar, and 
press the meat in a lemon squeezer to get all the juice out. Be¬ 
fore it begins to heat, add some bay leaves to flavor it. When 
ready to use, add plenty of salt, and the least bit of pepper. 
For the Fourth New Meal which will be the breakfast on the 
second day after the fast day, heat this beef tea, but not hot 
enough to reach the boiling point. Have some old bread that 
is two or more days old; toast this to a light brown, cut in 
small cubes, and drop in a big bowl of the beef tea, having the 
latter hot and well seasoned. Eat slowly, turning over the 
bread and the beef tea in the mouth. 

FIFTH NEW MEAL.—On the noon of the second day after 
the day of fasting, repeat the Fourth New Meal; wait ten 
minutes; then repeat the Second New Meal, which was the 
dinner of the first day after the fast. 

SIXTH NEW MEAL.—This is the evening meal of the sec¬ 
ond day after the day of fasting. Repeat the Fourth New Meal. 

SEVENTH NEW MEAL.—This is the breakfast of the third 
day after the day of fasting. Get a pound or two of fresh 
round steak. With a sharp knife scrape across the grain until 
all the pulp is removed from the fibres. Put this about a third 
of an inch thick on a large slice of old bread; then add salt to 
taste, and the least bit of black pepper. Put in a hot oven until 
it is hot but not changed in color. Eat slowly. 

EIGHTH NEW MEAL.—This is the dinner of the third day 
after the day of fasting. Repeat the Fourth New Meal; wait 
ten minutes; then repeat the Seventh New Meal. 

NINTH NEW MEAL.—This is the supper of the third day 
after the day of fasting. Repeat the Eighth New Meal. 

THE FOURTH STEP 

THE PERMANENT MEALS.—On the morning of the fourth 
day after the day of fasting, begin the regular and permanent 


Nature’s Doctors 


163 


meals. They should for one month be based solely on the foods 
in the ONE HOUR CLASS which have been elaborately de¬ 
scribed in a previous Section of this book. At the end of the 
month, it will then be allowable to add any two foods from the 
TWO HOUR CLASS, always remembering to adhere at the 
same time to those of the ONE HOUR CLASS. Your future 
eating is to be confined wholly to the TRUE FOODS. Do not 
blend in the same meal the foods that do not digest at about 
the same time. The test is in the disposition of the stomach 
and intestines to collect gas or wind, which is the same thing. 
That is always an indication of danger. Take the warning and 
act upon it. 

Adopt also, as far as possible, the great principle of one-food 
at a meal. We know that you cannot do this when someone else 
cooks the meals. 

Rule 82 .—Variations in the foods of the ONE HOUR CLASS 
and TWO HOUR CLASS may be found and used to advantage. 

Thus we know of strong men who make a whole meal of noth¬ 
ing but shredded wheat and cream; and of others who find 
strength in puffed rice and also in puffed wheat. Unpolished 
rice is coming into the market; and when it does, it will be a 
blessing to humanity; for ordinary rice is a weak and unbal¬ 
anced food unless eaten with plenty of milk. Insist on getting 
unpolished rice. If your dealers do not carry it, apply through 
the Parcels Post for it in the great cities; but keep asking for 
it until you get it. Then that kind of rice that is almost the sole 
food of the warlike Japs, will prove one of the best forms of 
food that you can find. 

Rule 83 .—Steps that are revolutionary in eating can be taken 
gradually and bring about the results desired. 

If you are ordering your meals by the card, you are at liberty 
to order what you wish and as much as you wish. Thus we 
know of reporters who will order two dishes of oatmeal at a 
restaurant, and nothing else. We know of others who make 
arrangements to get double-size dishes of one kind of food, in¬ 
stead of ordering a number of things. 

In a hotel where you pay for a number of courses, you do not 
feel like omitting many; it seems bad business policy to pay for 
a thing that you do not eat. In such case you have no way out 
of the difficulty. 


164 Complete Life Building 

In a boarding house, unless you can make some arrangement 
with the lady who controls the table, it is probable that you 
have no means of escape from the many kinds of food that are 
hurtful. The scant quantities at best, arouse in you a degree 
of hunger that will not permit you to select your food ,* you are 
glad to get something to eat. 

In your home, if you employ a cook, you cannot very well 
lighten her burdens by a simple diet. 

If your wife cooks for you, she will not be pleased to be told 
that her mixtures are not the best for health. Most men find 
it harder to convert their wives to plain cooking and simple 
eating, than to revolutionize a paid cook. If you are a woman, 
and cook for your husband, or employ a woman to do that work, 
your husband will not like any curtailment in his eating; he 
prefers variety to health. It may happen that both husband 
and wife are converted to the truth at about the same time, in 
which case they may pull together in saving ninety percent of 
the labor of house-keeping and ninety percent of the cost of 
living. But heaven has not yet come on earth, and the proba¬ 
bility is that you will be compelled to work out your health 
and safety without the aid of any member of your household. 

In your honest desire to get well and to stay well, in your 
fight against the encroachments of disease which you know very 
well will soon fell you, in your effort to bring your habits 
closer to the intentions of nature and the purposes of the Cre¬ 
ator, in the midst of your progress towards the only sensible 
solution of the fearful problems of life and death at the present 
day, you will be called a crank. Those who do not say so out 
loud will think it. There has never been a revolution that 
brought untold blessings to humanity, but the common herd 
heaped abuse on the heads of the men and women who moved 
steadily onward to the new plane of existence. The common 
herd is not found in any one class; it is as often present in the 
gilded youth, the idle rich, and the thoughtless upper ranks, 
as in any other part of the human family. 

In taking the step that shall cause you to select your foods 
properly you will have on your side the following influences: 

1. The laws of Nature. 

2. The commands of the Creator. 

3. The dictates of common sense. 


Nature’s Doctors 


165 


4. The exact needs of the human body. 

5. The attainment of perfect health. 

6. A life of real enjoyment. 

7. The mastery of old age when that comes, as come it must; 
all free from the loss of a single faculty; hale, hearty, and use¬ 
ful for many years beyond the span of life allotted to others. 

8. A feeling of security against all manner of sickness. 

9. Your own conscience. 

10. Superior mental and physical powers. 

Here are TEN influences that will be found on your side, 
working with you, helping you, if you have the courage to 
stand up for what is right. 

What are the influences that are to be counted against you in 
your fight for perfect health? Let us take an inventory: 

1. The shiftless cook who does not want to be told anything 
new. 

2. The indifferent housekeeper who has been brought up in the 
old ruts, like the Chinese, and who is insulted at the suggestion 
of making a change in her methods. 

3. The unthinking, thoughtless, don't care classes, who prefer 
to suffer and drug themselves, instead of making an effort to get 
well and stay well. 

4. The doctors, surgeons, hospitals, druggists, medicine makers, 
undertakers and grave diggers, will have their income lessened 
by a general uprising of humanity on the side of better health. 

Here are ten influences in your favor; and four against you. 

Which side do you prefer? Are the TEN aids stronger in 
your life than the four opponents? If so, then, can you stand 
the quiet scoffs of the class that is associated with your four 
enemies ? 

Having chosen your company, the next thing to do is to go 
quietly about making the reform as far as you yourself will be 
involved. If you are in earnest, others will see it, inquire the 
cause, and join you very soon. That is the way all great move¬ 
ments have proceeded. 

Quiet streams, or those that make the least noise, are the 
deeper ones and bear greater burdens easily. You have no need 
of attracting attention to yourself. There will always be ways 
and means of accomplishing easily the things that you make up 
your mind to achieve. 


166 


Complete Life Building 

If you cannot find the one-food diet that you prefer, lessen 
the variety at each meal to a few foods, always avoiding the 
things that you know are not the best for you. At a hotel in 
Boston several persons were eating only the plainer foods, and 
seemed to enjoy them; and another person who had witnessed 
them for several meals, approached one of the party and said: 
“Pardon me, hut may I inquire if you are Ralstonites?’’ The 
answer was in the affirmative, and a friendship followed that 
was pleasing to all. The same thing has occurred many times 
among passengers in crossing the ocean; the manner of selecting 
food at the table was noticeable only to Ralstonites; all others 
seeing nothing unusual. 

Do not try to make converts to the rules of common sense by 
arbitrary arguments; but rather look at the matter from the 
standpoint of the opposing party, and gradually bring about a 
change of opinion by gentle methods. 

At home do not set up a new regime in a sudden manner, as 
that only serves to antagonize your family. The better way is 
to omit the foods that you know you should not eat, and to eat 
more of the kinds that are suited to you. By this method you 
will, little by little, drift towards the one-food method. 

You will not find things at home convenient for the adoption 
of any new plan of eating or cooking. Rather than call for 
sweeping changes, it is better to accept things as you find them, 
and swing them gradually around to your methods. 

By using judgment you will be able to bring about a complete 
revolution in the community in which you live. 


THE NEW BODY 

When you have built a new body, keep it new. Do not let 
it get old. Experiments have been made for nearly fifty years 
for the purpose of acquiring new knowledge along this line. We 
know that the child needs more of certain minerals than the 
adult who has attained his growth; by more we mean a greater 
proportion in the same quantity of food. 

In this book there are One Hundred Rules which we have 
scattered along its pages as they apply to the teachings therein. 
As far as you are interested in these Rules it is a good idea to 


Nature’s Doctors 167 

memorize them for ready application in yonr own life. A few 
more will finish the code: 

Rule 84. —In the absence of mineral matter the body would be 
like jelly-fish. 

Rule 85. —The growing child is large or small in body accord¬ 
ing as the supply of mineral matter is great or little in the food. 

Rule 86. —The size of the child at birth depends on the growth 
of the bones prior to that event; and the growth of bones de¬ 
pends on the amount of mineral matter in the diet of the mother. 

Rule 87. —Stunted children have lacked a sufficient supply of 
mineral matter in the first year or more of life. 

Rule 88. —Rickets and similar bone diseases are caused by the 
lack of mineral matter in the diet of the child that has begun 
to grow to normal or average size. 

Rule 89. —Where babes and young children have been given 
food that contained an unusually large proportion of mineral 
matter, the body has grown of unusual size; as size is merely 
bigness of bone structure. 

Rule 90. —When growth of the body is attained at the end 
of youth, the supply of mineral matter should be at once les¬ 
sened. Some persons go on growing until they are thirty or 
forty years of age. 

Rule 91. —There comes a time when the body will cease to add 
to its size, and its excess of mineral matter then begins to clog 
the arteries. 

Rule 92. —Mineral matter when it clogs the arteries, becomes 
a distinct barrier to the operations of life. 

Rule 93. —Stony deposits in the body not only cause pain, 
but lead to breakdown. 

Rule 94. —The veins and blood vessels of the heart, as well as 
its arteries, become in time coated with a thin deposit of lime 
and other mineral matter, which prevents the repair of the 
tissue, and results in a thinness of the parts that may at any 
time give way. It is in this manner that sudden death from 
heart disease often occurs. 

Rule 95 .—The blood passages leading to the brain are like¬ 
wise clogged and made thin and brittle; and give way easily 
under any strain or pressure in the circulation; causing death 
from apoplexy more readily. 

Rule 96. —All through the finer veins of the brain itself this 


168 Complete Life Building 

mineral clogging and coating is taking place, hardening the 
tissue and lessening the flexibility of that organ. Memory is 
impaired, the power to think is weakened, and new ideas are 
never received. All beliefs except those of earlier years, are 
either denied or else enter only at the shallow parts of the brain. 

Rule 97 .—The fine microscopic glands under the skin, millions 
upon millions in number, are also clogged and stiffened with this 
excess of mineral matter, and the skin takes on the hue of age, 
while its flexibility and softness are decreased. Wrinkles come 
naturally into the face, and on the hands. 

Rule 98 .—By the same clogging which enters into all tissue 
and membranes, the stomach hardens and is no longer able to 
digest animal fats. 

Rule 99 .—The nerves and ganglia, or storage centers of vital¬ 
ity, are deprived of their flexibility, and cannot vibrate the 
feelings and powers of life as well as formerly. 

Rule 100 .—When the supply of mineral matter is reduced to 
equal the demands of the body for bone repairs; when the foods 
are selected and prepared to meet the needs of life; and when 
the methods of living are simple, reasonable and in harmony 
with the plain laws of nature; then old age as a period of 
decrepitude, weakness, helplessness and loss of faculties, is an 
ABSOLUTE IMPOSSIBILITY. 

The foregoing rules tell their own story. Countless experi¬ 
ments involving more than two hundred thousand cases, con¬ 
tinued through many years, confirm each and every one of these 
rules. It is true that some scientists claim to have discovered 
the germ that causes old age; but the destruction of that germ 
does not take the coating off the tissue or out of the veins, nor 
prevent the hardening of the arteries. On the other hand, the 
simple process of lessening the amount of mineral matter in 
the food does in fact overcome the old age tendency. 

1. Old beef, old mutton, old fowl, and old fish; meaning the 
meat from animals and fish that have lived to grow to maturity, 
are one of the causes of old age deposits in the body. The rea¬ 
son is plain. When animal life is growing, all the mineral mat¬ 
ter goes to make bones, and we do not eat the bones. When 
growth has been attained, the mineral matter then lodges in the 
tissue, and that is what we eat. Hence we store an excess of 
mineral matter from matured animal life, into our own bodies. 


Nature’s Doctors 


169 


We transfer the fault from one life to another, which is our own. 

2. Hard water is the most prolific cause of old age deposits. 
Any person who has seen the lining of a kettle in which hard 
water has been boiled, knows what is meant. 

3. Mineral matter from baking powders, and from food adul¬ 
terations and preservatives, cause old age deposits. 

4. Mineral matter from medicines, either in the form of pow¬ 
der, pills or liquid, are a prolific cause of old age deposits. 

5. Soups, broths, boiled dinners, boiled water, tea and coffee, 
are all prolific causes of old age deposits. 

6. Vegetables and roots that have matured are also causes of 
old age deposits. 

The remedy is to be found in the following methods: 

1. All meats, fowl and fish you eat should be from unmatured 
life. Veal, steer, chicken, half grown fish and game or fowl, 
lamb, and similar kinds are free from mineral matter, as they 
have not yet achieved their growth and become charged with 
such deposits. 

2. Secure either distilled water, rain water, fresh spring water, 
or any very soft water to drink. 

3. Let all medicines alone as much as possible; few if any 
are necessary. 

4. Select your foods so as to avoid those that are charged with 
adulterations and preservatives. Avoid baking powder cooking. 

5. Eat only those vegetables that are young. 

6. Stop using long boiled water, especially in drinks and food. 

7. Make use of old age SOLVENTS, or things that dissolve 
the mineral matter in the body. 

Nature will not do for man what he can do for himself. He 
must find out for himself what to do. When he is helpless, 
instinct saves him; after that he is the maker of his own life 
and safety. 

But nature has set up laws and processes that man is to learn 
how to use. The most wonderful of all laws next to gravity, is 
that of distillation. It is intended to separate the good from 
the bad. Distillation occurs in four forms: Vapor, Steam, 
Fruits, and Young Vegetables. 

Vapor is the pure part of the ocean or other body of water 
that rises to the clouds, and is discharged to the earth again in 
the form of rain; the latter being the pure part of the water. 


170 Complete Life Building 

Steam is the same thing as vapor, except that it is given into 
the hands of man to aid him. Man, by boiling any kind of 
water, no matter how bad, is able to set free the pure part in 
the form of steam, often by double distillation; then to con¬ 
dense the steam into water, and use it. What do you think of 
the prevailing custom of using the part that remains? 

Every part of steam that escapes from boiling water contains 
the pure portion of the water. The minerals, the poisons, and 
the dregs are in the part that remains after the steam has 
taken the good away. Many cooks let the kettle boil or simmer 
indefinitely so as to keep hot water at hand. They use the dregs 
in tea, in coffee, and in other ways. If at any time hot water 
is needed, the only sensible method is to put on fresh water, 
bring it to a boil, and then use it at once. Many women allow 
tea and coffee to cook or simmer all day long, adding more as 
they need it; and thus they are drinking dregs all the time. 

The worst habit of all is to cook meats and bones into soups. 
We called at a house some time ago in the morning, again at 
noon, and again late in the afternoon; and each time we saw a 
kettle of soup cooking in which a soup bone was confined. The 
woman had all day long been adding water as it boiled away, 
and kept the bone cooking in order to get the good of it. What 
she had was the condensed dregs of a great quantity of water, 
every particle of the pure portion of which had gone off in 
steam. This woman was aged beyond her years, looking twenty 
years older than she was. Some persons make beef tea by long 
boiling or simmering. Some cook boiled dinners by the same 
method. While the lid remains on the kettle, the vapor escapes 
all the time, and reduces the quantity of water as is well known. 

Men and women grow old faster than their years, when they 
take the dregs of boiled water in their systems. Families that 
use this form of cooking show their premature age. 

The vapor or steam of water, condensed and made palatable, 
is a solvent of old age deposits in the body. There is no reason 
why it should not be adopted as a drink. 

All mellow and sweet fruits that are juicy, are natural sol¬ 
vents of old age deposits. The strained juice of very sweet and 
mellow apples is excellent and effective if taken fresh made 
daily. But all fruits that are fully ripe serve the samo pur¬ 
pose ; for nature distils her fluid in her fruits. 


BOOK TWO 


1. THE TRUE FOODS 

2. “ALL NATURE” CURES 

3. RALSTON REGIME 


NINTH SECTION 


WHAT TRUE FOODS DO 

OR THE FIRST TIME in the history of health re¬ 
search we present a list of the foods that exactly build 
the body in all its needs; that repair the waste per¬ 
fectly ; and replace the damaged parts with sound and 
whole structure. The cause of ninety-nine percent of 
all the ills of humanity is the poison set up by so-called foods 
that are not foods at all, or are part foods and part foreign 
matter; or a great excess of one kind. When the world ceases 
to use these things, then it is logical to assume that ninety-nine 
percent of all the ills of the world will disappear. 

And this assumption is correct. 

But it is impossible to stop using the things that have been 
called food unless we find the other things that are known to 
be true food. And this has now been done. In another chap¬ 
ter you will be given a full description and list of all the true 
foods that are suited to your needs. It is our purpose in this 
place to show the value and usefulness of such foods. 

If you will try to have patience while we state a few prin¬ 
ciples, you will the better appreciate what is further said: 

1. When a person eats only the true foods the revolution in 
the health of the body is so marvelous and complete that it seems 
difficult to understand. 



171 





172 


Complete Life Building 

2. When most of the foods eaten are the true foods, nature 
takes care of the rest and throws them off as slight poisons; 
thus giving to every one a good margin of safety against abuse. 
It is very rare that sickness ensues. 

3. It has been proved thousands of times that when a person 
eats true foods as just stated, with some of the false foods, it 
is possible to cure chronic maladies, but the cure is much slower 
than if all the diet were to consist of the true foods. This mar¬ 
gin of safety, therefore, which nature provides against a certain 
amount of abuse, is even curative. 

4. Any person who has recovered from an acute illness, who 
begins on nothing but true foods, rebuilds a new and perfect 
body; and this being so, it follows, as has been abundantly 
proved, that a well person will gradually rebuild a new and per¬ 
fect body by gradually changing from the false foods to the true. 

5. When more than half of the foods are false, and less than 
half are true, there is a struggle between sickness and health 
that fluctuates with the influence of other causes, such as pure 
air, hard work, and other helps to throw off the poisons; but 
there is also a resort to pills, drugs, medicines, doctors, stimu¬ 
lants, nerve-easers, and other barbarisms, all of which disap¬ 
pear when the balance comes again in favor of the true foods. 

6. If less than half of the foods taken are true foods, the 
nerves suffer constant poisoning which results in great unrest 
and irritability at times, especially if anything goes wrong or 
depresses. Insanity has been traced often to the excess of false 
foods that cause nerve irritability; for this erratic action al¬ 
ways precedes one form of insanity. In fact, excessive irrita¬ 
bility long continued has but one end, which is mental break¬ 
down and loss of control of oneself; and the false foods are 
always setting up this irritability. 

7. Cravings of all kinds are due to the poisons of false food 
in the system. Remove the false foods and you remove all 
cravings. The only notable exception is the craving for ciga¬ 
rettes and for drugs that attends every victim of syphilis either 
inherited as a blood taint, or acquired by criminal act, or as 
a result of such act. But even this craving is lessened and 
overcome when true foods are adopted wholly in place of the 
false foods. 

8. When the proportion of false foods is fully three-fourths 


Nature’s Doctors 


173 


of all that is eaten by a person, such person is an invalid, with 
either chronic or acute disease. Influenza, the grippe, heavy 
colds, headaches, neuritis, rheumatism, dropsy, neuralgia, threats 
of impending collapse, liver disorders, kidneys troubles, heart 
weakness, lung dangers or something else, will be the fruit of 
such poisons. 

9. The first thing the doctor does is to cut out the bad diet. 
If the victim tries to doctor himself, he will spend much of his 
income on drugs, pills and medicines, and at the same time he 
will not know enough to make his food sensible. He goes along 
in his ignorance burning up what vitality he did possess, until 
the undertaker has charge of him. If he calls in a doctor, he 
will be compelled to bring an end to his false eating until the 
doctor tells him to go it again; and either he has learned a 
lesson, or has not. Probably not. He belongs to the almost 
universal class who never had a sick day in his life, if his state¬ 
ment is to be believed; but who is abnormally and morbidly out 
of condition. 

10. Many people do not know what the doctor knows, that 
no sick person ever got well by the use of medicines. All the 
latter can do is to bridge over one poison by another. Neu¬ 
trality follows, as one enemy wipes out the other enemy. A 
king was threatened by a foreign foe on the north, and by an¬ 
other foreign foe on the south; he saved himself by bringing 
the two enemies together; they annihilated each other, while 
his army rested. When the good doctor has accomplished this 
in the sick man, he always says, and you have heard him many 
times say, “Now Nature will do the rest.” The false foods 
bring in the poisons; the doctor attacks them with his pet 
poisons: they are annihilated; and Nature does the rest. But 
she will not do the rest unless the patient stops filling up again 
on the poisons of the false foods. 

11. There is no cure to-day for tuberculosis except the true 
foods. There is no cure for diabetes except the true foods. 
There is no cure for kidney troubles except the true foods. The 
same is true in stomach, heart, liver, nervous, mental and all 
blood maladies. 

12. A man is shot through the brain and dies. If a portion 
of his lungs be taken from the body and placed in cold storage 
for months, and then given body warmth and fed with blood 


174 Complete Life Building 

made by the true foods, the lungs will begin to take on life 
again as far as it is possible for a piece to do so. Bach cell 
of the tissue will build a new cell; and each new one will carry 
on the same work. 

13. If from the same man a part of the kidney be taken and 
used at once or after it has been in cold storage for any length 
of time not too great, if it be given blood fed on the true foods, 
it will not only build new kidney structure of a perfect kind, 
but will also take on the functions of the kidney as far as the 
small piece can do so. It grows, throbs and lives as it would 
have done if it had remained in its place in the live body of 
the man. 

14. The cells of a piece of bone fed in the same manner began 
to build new bone material. They did not make kidney or lung 
material; they obeyed the secret law of Nature that each part 
looks after the making of its own kind. If only a general mass 
of cells are present they will make nothing but cells; but when 
these cells belong to some organ, they build that organ. 

15. In making skin the same law held good. A piece of new 
skin, or of a part that had been kept in cold storage six months, 
did exactly the work expected; its cells drew nutrition from 
the blood and more skin was the result. It did not make bone, 
it did not make kidney, it did not make lungs; it made only 
skin. Why? Because the cells of the original piece of skin 
were charged by Nature with the duty of making more of it¬ 
self. In performing this duty, it did not bungle the work. All 
the intricate system of pumps, lace tissue, engines to drive off 
the excretions, all were perfectly made. A piece of scalp sim¬ 
ilarly treated and fed, set up the task of weaving more scalp. 
But scalp cells would not make hair cells; yet the latter, if 
alive, would make more of their own kind. 

16. It is strange that a piece of liver wholly separated for 
months from the body, will when given blood that was fed on 
the true foods, proceed to build more new tissue that belongs 
only to the liver; and the strangest part of it all is that such 
new piece will, as far as it is constructed, try to carry on 
the functions of its kind. 

17. But the surprise of all things in these experiments is 
that a piece of still heart that has been kept for months in 
cold storage, will begin to BEAT when given warmth and 


Nature’s Doctors 


175 


blood fed on the true foods. It is only a piece, bear in mind. 
What is there in this bit of heart that orders it to start beating ? 

Other parts of the body showed the operation of the same 
law; each part making more of its own kind. But when any 
of the false foods were given, then the part DIED. 

Fried foods, pastry, pickles, cranberries, Saratoga chips, 
breakfast food crisps, sausages, lard, pork, ham, tea, coffee, 
chocolate, lobster, bacon, Boston baked beans, cucumbers, rad¬ 
ishes, tomatoes, new bread, marmalade, dried currants, citron, 
spices, rinds of oranges or lemons, bran hulls, pieplant, pearl 
tapioca, crabs, terrapin, oysters, sweet potatoes, gooseberries, 
catsup, gelatin, viscera, coconut, corn stalk juice and similar 
lines of poison foods whether alone or in combination, caused 
instant death to the cell growth; and human life is wholly made 
up of cell growth as far as the body, brain, nerves and organs 
are concerned. 

So the voice of civilization says: If these things will kill, 
why eat them? On the other hand, if the TRUE FOODS will 
add new life to old life, why not adopt them as your regular 
basis of health? 

The only value that can be placed on the foregoing experi¬ 
ments is to show that only pure blood can start life anew in 
these parts of the body. 

If such parts can be made to grow into a healthy structure 
when they are separated from a complete organism like the 
body of man, why should they not go on with the same good 
work when the man is alive and they are all in place ? This in¬ 
quiry was answered by many thousands of experiments, and 
the answer was always the same: The true foods made new 
and perfect growth; the false foods injured the various parts 
of the body and caused sickness and disease. 

It is only very recently that governments have discovered 
that all sickness and disease, with few exceptions, can be traced 
to wrong foods or lack of right foods. Certain troubles are 
known to be due to shortage of some v needed food elements. 

Beri-beri is one of the shortage diseases; and is so deadly 
when it runs in epidemic form that whole nations become af¬ 
flicted ; yet there is no known cure for it but to supply the food 
elements that are lacking; and this supply always, in every case, 


176 Complete Life Building 

without a single exception, brings about a cure, and a complete 
cure. 

Pellagra for years defied all government efforts to find its 
cause; and you will see in the reports many theories as to what 
gave rise to this epidemic. Now it is known to a certainty that 
shortage of needed food elements is its only cause; and when a 
complete supply is given the patient, the cure is sure and perfect. 

Pickets which has prevailed for generations among children, 
leading to deformities through softening of the bones, was easily 
proved to be due to shortage of some food elements. Medicines 
never helped it. No wisdom of a Solomon in the medical pro¬ 
fession could effect a cure until tests showed decisively that lack 
of certain food elements was the sole cause, and the supply of 
a complete or what we call a true food was the only cure. 

Blood disorders of all kinds are due to the same foundation 
cause except in venereal foulness. Scurvy is known to-day as 
the result of nothing more or less than lack of proper food; in 
fact that much about it has been known for generations. 

Eheumatism is due in ninety-five cases out of a hundred to 
certain false foods ; in a few cases it is due to diseased tonsils, 
bad teeth or growths in the throat or nose, but these instances 
are not many, and all such lesser causes were themselves due 
to wrong foods in the beginning. No tonsils are unhealthy or 
abnormal unless they have been made so by a false diet. You 
may select, if you will at random, ten thousand cases of rheu¬ 
matism from the mildest to the most painful; and you can shut 
your eyes to all of them as individuals; then prescribe for them 
a year of the true foods; and any case you do not cure in that 
way will be very exceptional. To show what we mean, in the 
course of a certain period of time, one after another there came 
to our attention one hundred requests to help people who were 
suffering from chronic rheumatism. In case number one we 
sent a list of the true foods and told the patient to eat only 
that diet for one year; we did not ask for details; we just shut 
our eyes as it were and hit blindly; but we asked for reports 
from month to month; the victim began to get better in a few 
weeks and was all well long before the year was gone. Each 
one of the hundred cases we treated in the same way; our pur¬ 
pose being to try out our claim that the true foods will effect a 
cure. In not a single case did the malady last more than ten 


Nature’s Doctors 


177 


weeks. But we have known for many years that rheumatism 
is caused by certain foods, and can be cured by a change in the 
diet. 

When all the elements required by the body are present in 
the daily food, except the one required by the hair, all the rest 
of the body will be well except the hair; that will slowly begin 
to fall out, or get thin and lose its vitality. 

By denying the body certain bone making foods and at the 
same time* supplying the hair making element, you can cause 
rickets while you are actually helping the hair to grow; but by 
reversing the foods, you can cure the rickets but weaken the 
growth of hair. By supplying ALL the needed elements you 
can grow hair abundantly and prevent the rickets, and every¬ 
thing else will be prevented that is called disease. 

The skin can be woven of nearly all its elements, but it will 
not be a perfect skin; just as the carpet weaver, by omitting one 
or more of his threads will produce a defective carpet. There 
is a difference between the use of false foods and the lack of 
true foods. If you possess the latter but mix them with too 
great a proportion of the false foods, you will weave skin dis¬ 
ease, of which there are many kinds. A familiar illustration 
is the disorder known as the hives, or skin blotches that are very 
unpleasant; strawberries are a false food; no matter how much 
of the true foods you eat, if you indulge in too many straw¬ 
berries, you may have the hives, because they are a poison. 
When you omit this fruit for a few days, the hives will dis¬ 
appear ; when you again eat this fruit, the hives will come; thus 
you may play hide and seek with strawberries and find the 
hives popping in and out. The same is true of other false foods. 
Pork, lard, or any swine product may give you visitors known 
as boils and carbuncles. 

But let us look at the difference between the use of false 
foods and the lack of true kinds. If you have all the food sup¬ 
ply your body requires except one or more of the elements 
needed to weave perfect skin, you will find yourself wrinkled 
many years in advance of old age; because some of the threads 
required to weave the skin have been omitted in the food. 

When you eat the true foods, your skin will be complete; it 
will not wrinkle easily, unless you squint your face as does the 
sea captain when he is guiding his ship through the raging 


178 Complete Life Building 

gales. Skin is leather and it may be given almost any kind of 
a finish that the machine is set to execute. The habit of wrin¬ 
kling the face constantly is not a nice one; but apart from that 
it will wrinkle of itself if certain food elements are lacking. 

On one occasion we saw some young folks in their teens whose 
faces were old because of their many wrinkles. On several 
other occasions we met persons in the twenties, and some in 
the thirties, who had the faces of aged people. These phenomena 
were so interesting that we took the time to investigate their 
diet; and the result was the same in every case: They were 
omitting in their foods every day some of the elements needed 
to make perfect skin. 

CRAVINGS furnish a still more interesting line of study. 
There are all kinds of cravings. Those of the prospective mother 
are for certain things to eat in nine cases out of ten; and an 
examination of the diet always shows what food elements are 
lacking. Supply these, and you will bring an end to the spe¬ 
cial desires. 

False foods set up inflammation of the stomach and alimen¬ 
tary canal; the true foods cure this inflammation. But it is 
this irritated condition that causes the craving for narcotics and 
stimulants; not only alcoholic, but all other kinds including tea 
and coffee, drugs, tobacco and other things which are not only 
wholly devoid of food values, but are deeper enemies of life 
than the things they are employed to offset. We have seen and 
known of many thousands of cases where the TRUE FOODS 
have fully combated this inflammation, and have always driven 
out the CRAVINGS. Most people are desirous of overcoming 
such evil habits; they are willing to be cured in a natural way; 
but they positively refuse to let go the narcotics and stimulants 
while they remain victims of the false foods that keep the in¬ 
flammation acute and active. And we do not blame them. 

THE ANGELIC WIFE who has taken to herself a husband 
of docile temper, of gentle speech and loving manner, finds the 
road to his heart in cooking him a good meal. She gives him 
corn crisps, Saratoga chips, fried bacon, pastry, new bread, 
doughnuts, fried eggs and ham, and like things, and they please 
his palate while they are passing it. Not one of these and other 
similar foods can be properly digested. They lie in his stom¬ 
ach where they set up torments; they produce a progeny of 


Nature’s Doctors 


179 


small but acutely active fiends that eat and tear and rasp the 
delicately sensitive lining of the stomach, from which organ 
they climb up into his throat and head and brain. There is no 
irritation so hard to control as that which follows blind indi¬ 
gestion, which is not located in the stomach so much as in the 
general nervous system. Profanity is one of its first offspring. 
Suppressed profanity is the polite form of outwardly trying to 
look and speak kindly to the wife when she asks: ‘‘Did my 
love like his dinner? Would he like such a dinner every day?” 
What he says inwardly depends on how long he has been 
married. 

The irritated brain cannot always frame a gentle answer; a 
quick retort follows; and the first quarrel has been inaugurated, 
due to blind indigestion. This is the cause of ninety-nine per¬ 
cent of all domestic friction. What is known as incompatibility 
of temperament is nothing more than the uncovering of the 
real self through the acid test of blind indigestion. We have 
seen a man eat a dinner of lard products, fried stuff, pastry 
and other false foods, and have heard him indulge in pro¬ 
fanity all the afternoon following the meal; while the same 
man, when he had a dinner of digestible foods, would be good 
natured and gentle the remainder of the day. We saw another 
man who had eaten an indigestible dinner of false foods, abuse 
his fellow beings, kick a dog, and pound a boy; the same man 
on occasions following a properly prepared meal, was of exactly 
the opposite disposition. He admitted his bad temper and in¬ 
ability to control it when he had indigestion. From a perfectly 
sane mind his irritability produced one that in time became in¬ 
sane. And here is one of the frequent causes of mental break¬ 
down. They say that a drop of water falling constantly on 
one spot on the head will cause insanity. They say that think¬ 
ing of one subject too much, will do the same thing. But it is 
known that constantly recurring indigestion, due to eating false 
foods, or any foods that are wrongly cooked, is the cause of 
many suicides through intensified irritability; and the man or 
woman who slays self is always insane. 

The TRUE FOODS prevent these disasters. 

If you have any love for humanity, if you wish to make im¬ 
possible the desire for self-destruction, if you wish to help that 
man rise out of his hell who is broken by temptations and crav- 


180 


Complete Life Building 

ings that he cannot control, if you wish to bring hopefulness 
into sad and despondent lives, then talk and teach and preach 
the new doctrine of the TRUE FOODS to every one and every¬ 
where so that their use may become universal. 

No man can be religious with an inflamed stomach. No man 
can be moral with an inflamed stomach. No man can be a 
loving husband or father with an inflamed stomach. No man 
can see clearly, think clearly or act clearly with an inflamed 
stomach. No man can possess pure blood, healthy organs or a 
sound body with an inflamed stomach. No man with an in¬ 
flamed stomach can control his passions, his feelings, his crav¬ 
ings, his temptations or his habits. 

It is one of the few maladies that are spreading their dangers, 
while science is lessening the majority of the others. 

The remedy is simple; it consists in being One Hundred Per¬ 
cent Right in Food Selection, by using the TRUE FOODS. 

But as the human mind is not by any means One Hundred 
Percent Civilized it is not yet able to grasp this great fact. 

Let us hope, however, that with YOU it is different. The 
fact that YOU have carefully read these pages thus far, in¬ 
dicates that YOU are to become one of the great foundation 
units of a better civilization. 

The brain is a much more delicate organ than is supposed. 
The process of thinking depends on the fluids that flow through 
the meninges or linings that surround the brain. Perfect think¬ 
ing is perfect civilization. But perfect thinking is impossible 
unless the meninges or brain membranes are perfectly normal, 
or free from all congestion. As almost every stomach is con¬ 
gested, and as such congestion travels fast to the passages lead¬ 
ing to the brain, it is always true that every irritating meal 
produces an abnormal condition of the brain membranes. False 
foods and poisons from bad cooking make perfect thinking im¬ 
possible; and these influences in excess lead to temporary in¬ 
sanity which is the next step beyond irritability. Hence there 
can never be perfect brain action until the diet consists solely 
of the TRUE FOODS; and there can never be perfect civiliza¬ 
tion until there is perfect brain action. When the process of 
thinking is defective or erratic all human conduct is defective 
and erratic; and the world is full of the consequences of this 
lack of normal brain health. 


TENTH SECTION 



“ALL NATURE’’ CURES 

ATURE IS THE LIVING PULSE of the Creator 
throbbing in the plant kingdom of this earth out 
of which has emerged the higher kingdom of which 
man is the head. Until man came into control of 
some of the vital energies of the plant kingdom, the 
responsibility was solely with the Creator. Since man was per¬ 
mitted to rule life below him, the responsibility has been shifted, 
and the results do not as yet reach the same standard of value 
that they will some day, or that they would have done had his 
authority been delayed a few thousand centuries. 

Man’s failure to know Nature, and his interference with her 
plans, is the sole cause of all the sickness in the world, with its 
train of disasters longer and wider than the tail of the giant 
comet. By that failure man has fed his body with poisons; and 
to-day more than ninety percent of all his food is poison. His 
attempt to drive out these evils has reached no higher level 
than the introduction of poison pills to physic out the danger; 
the use of poison medicines to counteract one poison by another; 
the employment of the knife to cut out localized poisons; and 
sometimes a resort to the practice of fasting in the hope that 
the poisons will leave by the wasting away of the body and its 
contents. But all methods tend to one and the same end. 

A ray of light heralded the dawn of a new morning sometime 
ago when a great doctor, after driving out poisons from the sys¬ 
tem of his most noted patient, said, “Now you are as clean as 

181 































182 


Complete Life Building 

medicines can make you. Let Nature do the rest.” Since then 
all doctors have said the same thing*, “Let Nature do the rest.” 
They are saying it to-day. And what is more important every 
intelligent doctor keeps on hand lists of the foods that will give 
Nature the chance to do the rest. 

Then when the patient is well, he starts all over again filling 
up his body with the same kinds of food that are ninety percent 
unfit for him. It is like removing the soil from a very dirty car¬ 
pet with a vacuum cleaner and when the carpet is in good con¬ 
dition, emptying the dirt back on it. The Ralston Method is 
this: Let Nature do it all; and when the body is cleaned let 
Nature keep on doing it all. 

Are you able to grasp the fact that human life, barring acci¬ 
dent, can be prolonged indefinitely by the use of the TRUE 
FOODS? 

Let us go on with this work and see where it leads. 

There are TWO CLASSES of Ralstonites: 

CLASS ONE:—Those who are well and wish to remain well. 

CLASS TWO:—Those who are not well, but who wish to get 
well and enter CLASS ONE. 

For both these classes, and especially the second, this Section 
of the present book is a giant fund of knowledge, all compre¬ 
hensive in its helpfulness, and a never-failing Guide as long 
as life shall last. We will list the maladies that command 
attention: 

ACUTE INDIGESTION.—This quickly acting danger slays 
its thousands every year. It is so clearly the result of gases 
freed by poisons in the stomach that the cause and cure are self- 
evident, Adopt the TRUE FOODS. 

ALCOHOLISM.—The majority of men who suffer from this 
disease are sincerely desirous of finding a cure for it. Let us 
first ascertain the 

CAUSE of alcoholism: It has been proved to be a craving 
set up by the congestion of the lining of the stomach and of 
the membrane lining the alimentary canal. This congestion, 
while subsequently due to the inflammatory action of the alco¬ 
hol itself, had its origin in a diet consisting of some of the fol¬ 
lowing foods, though not necessarily all of them or any great 
number of them. Any one such article would do its evil work; 

Pork, lard, bacon, sausage, cheese, crullers, doughnuts, pastry, 


Nature’s Doctors 


183 


new bread, corn crisps, breakfast food crisps, fried potatoes, 
chips, fried ham, fried meats of any kind, fried fish, fried oys¬ 
ters, fried egg plant, fried eggs, tea, baked beans, mincemeat, 
clams, lobster, suet, goose, turnips, cabbage, radishes, cranberries, 
peppers, cucumbers, pickles, vinegar, catsup, peanuts, peanut 
butter, spices, fruit cake, dried currants, gelatine and coconut. 

The test is this: If a person has an actual craving for alco¬ 
holic drink, he is suffering from congestion as stated. Any one 
of the foods or articles in the above list will keep alive the fire 
of that congestion. To effect a cure, ALL the foregoing things 
should be avoided. There are the TRUE FOODS LEFT from 
which a selection can be made; and their use tends to cure the 
congestion. When that has disappeared, all craving will cease, 
and the sufferer will not under any temptation touch liquor. 
This is no idle dream; but a fact that has been proved in fifty 
years of tests. 

APOPLEXY.—In addition to any of the foods or articles 
mentioned in the list under Alcoholism, avoid coffee if you are 
subject to dizziness and fullness of blood. The TRUE FOODS 
all tend to effect a cure in cases that are curable; while they 
will always prevent an attack. This whole book of Life Build¬ 
ing shows the kind of way to live to avoid this danger. 

APPENDICITIS.—The intestines are lined by a membrane 
the surface of which covers the interior; and a part of this sur¬ 
face covers the opening to a small worm shaped appendage at 
the lower right side of the abdomen. This appendage has no 
use, and is a needless source of danger, unless it serves as a 
warning to humanity to use judgment and good sense in food 
selection. It is almost always preceded by constipation; and 
there is a general understanding among doctors that if the latter 
trouble can be averted, the more acute disaster can be avoided. 
More cases of appendicitis occur among travelers, and persons 
who board at hotels than among those who live at home; show¬ 
ing that the use of hotel cooking and foods may have something 
to do with the cause. It is also known that many of the pre¬ 
vailing kinds of baking powder tend to eat the lining from the 
interior of the intestines; and this exposes the opening to the 
appendix. The contents of the bowels get in ^nd as there is no 
circulation there, the result is mortification and subsequent 
peritonitis, which is generally fatal. Preservatives in food eat 


184 Complete Life Building 

off the lining; and the harsh action of Constipation is still more 
severe. The cure is to be found in avoiding these dangers, and 
in using only the TRUE FOODS. 

ASTHMA.—This very painful malady is the result in many 
cases of years of suffering from hay fever or rose cold; but may 
arise from a congested condition of the bronchial passages, and 
hence has its origin in the stomach. The lower throat and air 
passages to the lungs are lined with a very delicate covering 
under which are the most sensitive nerves. Injury to this 
covering such as occurs when congestion is present, exposes the 
nerves to irritation from the air that passes through them, and 
violent paroxysms follow. For immediate relief any reliable 
antiseptic salve should be placed on the back of the tongue and 
inhaled until it melts, while hot camphorated lard oil should 
be rubbed into the flesh on the outside. Raw whites of eggs 
held in the back of the mouth and inhaled very slowly to pre¬ 
vent them from getting into the lungs, but to allow the albumen 
to be absorbed by the injured membranes, tends to heal them. 

It will always be seen that a person who is subject to asthma 
will suffer more after a meal that sets up indigestion. Some 
of the best medical experts in this malady assert that all cases 
of asthma arise from a congested stomach. This arises from 
foods that irritate, and this irritation spreads both upward and 
downward. What is a slightly inflamed stomach travels into 
the food passage, and involves the breathing tubes, eventually 
reaching the throat. There is reason to believe that the founda¬ 
tion for all forms of sore throat and of colds, grippe and in¬ 
fluenza, has exactly this origin and the damaged surface of the 
membrane becomes a fertile soil for the invasion of germs. A 
famous doctor once said, “All colds start with an inflamed 
stomach.” Of course the first cause is wrong foods; and hence 
the permanent cure must be the true foods. 

For the foods that cause asthma, see the discussion of PRO¬ 
FANITY later on in this Section. 

BLOOD PRESSURE.—Almost all doctors advise their 
patients to have their blood pressure tested, at five dollars or 
more per test. Almost all persons who have occasion to consult 
doctors, are wise to the need of having their blood pressure 
tested. So common is this desire of late that country doctors 


Nature’s Doctors 


185 


who have no apparatus with which to make such test, will go 
through the pretence so well that their patrons will not know 
the difference until they have the real thing done in the city. 
So many thousands of innocent sufferers are told they have high 
pressure when in fact they have low. 

High blood pressure may be the sign of heart disease; or of 
kidney disease; or of hardening of the arteries. In the first 
two classes of causes it may occur in youth or middle life; but 
in hardening of the arteries, it rarely occurs before advanced 
life or lafe in middle life. 

As a general rule it adds the figure one to the age of the 
person. 

Thus if the patient is twenty, the normal pressure should be 

120 . 

If sixty, then the normal may be 160. 

But this rule is not fixed. Most doctors regard the normal 
condition as between 120 to 130 for everybody under fifty years 
of age. The test is made by ascertaining the resistance of the 
blood vessels against a column of mercury; if this column is 
130 millimeters high, the blood pressure that resists it is said 
to be 130. If a person not yet in middle life was found to have 
160 resistance, the indication would be very dangerous; whereas 
one who was fifty or sixty years old might have such pressure 
and yet be in perfect health. 

The sudden ending of life through high pressure is always 
to be feared. Anger, or unusual exertion, or a very heavy meal 
may bring the climax most unexpectedly. Wherever a weak 
blood vessel is over-strained it may burst; if in the eye it will 
cause blindness; if in the brain, it may result in paralysis,, or 
apoplexy. The warning consists, when it comes at all, in a 
feeling of dizziness, and often in falling, or a tendency to fall. 

The treatment aims to avert the fatal attack. Avoid constipa¬ 
tion as this trouble almost always precedes the acute danger. 
Avoid also eating a heavy meal; better five meals a day that are 
light than one that is heavy. All meats, all soups, all broths 
made of meat should be omitted. Milk should be sipped, and 
bread toasted dipped in it. With the exceptions stated, depend 
solely on the TRUE FOODS. The tendency to high blood 
pressure may be reduced, and a cure finally reached in this way. 


186 


Complete Life Building 


BRIGHT’S DISEASE 

CAUSE.—It is very rare that a person under forty years of 
age is subject to this malady. It attacks those who are over 
forty, and is almost always incurable when advanced. It gives 
little or no warning. The first thing the victim knows is that 
the eyes are fast giving out, and then he is told he has less than 
six months to live. There are three kinds of Bright’s disease: 

1. The inflammatory disease. 

2. The gouty affection. 

3. The waxy condition. The latter is due to venereal diseases 
and is never curable. 

The gouty affection attends the presence of uric acid in the 
blood, and has its origin in the same cause as rheumatism, which 
see. In the kidneys, as in the liver, there is a change of tissue 
to a leathery growth which refuses to carry on the duties of the 
organ, and death ensues from gout or from urine poisoning. 

The inflammatory condition of Bright’s disease is curable in 
the first stage; and there need never be a failure to effect such 
a cure. But in the advanced stage, there is a breaking down of 
the heart, the blood vessels and various organs; then no hope 
remains. 

CURE.—The first thing that an expert asks of a patient is if 
he is addicted to the use of beer, wine or liquor; for alcohol is 
the surest enemy of the kidneys and liver. But there are kinds 
of Bright’s disease that may or may not be caused by alcohol. 
An excess of meat-eating may contribute to the danger. In 
countries where the people never eat meat, there has never been 
a case of Bright’s disease. Tea, coffee, charged waters, soda 
waters, and all alcoholic drinks are hurtful. All patent medi¬ 
cines do harm. Despite the claims of advertisements, there is no 
medicine that will decrease the malady. The only cures ever 
effected have come from dieting. 

The direct action of this disease is the accumulation of urine 
in the blood which goes to the brain, heart and all parts. The 
skin must be kept open. Perspiration is an advantage and 
necessary. This is secured by wearing porous under-clothing, 
heavier than is ordinarily needed. A hot water bath every 
night is important. The lungs carry off a great deal of the 
urine; and deep breathing is an aid in this respect. Any per- 


Nature’s Doctors 


187 


son who so desires, can easily double the volume of respiration 
as a habit. Of course, it is not natural for all urine to pass 
out through the lungs and skin, although part of it escapes in 
those channels even when the health is perfect. The kidneys 
are made to do that work. Under the experiments such as are 
referred to in an early Section of this book, a piece of kidney 
cut out and placed on a slide at once; or, after being in cold 
storage for any length of time, no matter how long; will, when 
freed from its poisons and given perfect food, begin to grow 
healthy tissue and perform the function for which it was created. 

In desperate cases of Bright’s disease, resort at once to but¬ 
termilk, distilled water, and the escape of the urine through the 
lungs and skin, as already stated. Take no other food than 
buttermilk, and take all you can get into the stomach, always 
slowly. Put double work on the skin and lungs. Some cases 
have pulled through in this way. But if you have this malady 
and do escape death, adhere to the ONE-HOUR FOODS after 
you are well, for you may not retain your health long if you 
are again careless. 

It is better to prevent this malady than to try to cure it; so 
if you have fear of it, adopt the ONE-HOUR and TWO-HOUR 
FOODS now; and let tea, coffee, beer, wine and liquor alone. 


BOILS AND CARBUNCLES 

These afflictions are caused by outside germs or bacteria that 
are pressed into the skin where they take root and spread rap¬ 
idly. But when they once secure fertile ground in the blood 
they spread to other parts of the body. This fertile blood is 
almost always the result of some part of pork or swine meat 
or products therefrom, such as lard, ham, bacon, and sausage. 
In a series of investigations of more than two hundred thou¬ 
sand cases of boils and carbuncles, there was not a single case 
where the victim had not eaten liberally something produced 
from swine. This fact warrants the conclusion that there is 
connection between this class of food and the maladies. 

But only one part of the trouble comes from such food; it 
furnishes the soil in which the germs take root and thrive. 

The germs themselves are very numerous and omnipresent. 
They are found on the skin of the body, and millions of people 


188 Complete Life Building 

carry them there who never have boils. They are also found on 
underclothing that has been worn longer than it should be; and 
on dirty clothes in general. They float on the dust in the air, 
but are ever seeking lodgment on the skin of the body. Yet 
they rarely get under the skin. 

They must be pushed under, or rubbed in, and there must 
be a slight break or scratch on the skin to enable them to be 
pushed under the surface. At the back of the neck the collar, 
or the coat itself may rub the germs in. This accounts for the 
fact that nine boils or carbuncles out of every ten occur at the 
back of the neck, which is a most dangerous place owing to its 
nearness to the brain. Several strange boil afflictions have oc¬ 
curred at the ears, and have been caused by the habit of insert¬ 
ing roughly some small thing into the ear to remove the wax, 
resulting in a slight wound of the skin in the ear passage and 
the development of the dangerous boil there. 

Men who row boats are subject to abrasion of the flesh by 
the friction on the seat of the body where boils appear. Those 
who wear collars that have rough starched edges, as when the 
collars are old, are subject to boils at the neck,* while oarsmen 
have them at the seat. The wearing of tight belts has caused 
many boils on the waist line. When the use of suspenders was 
abandoned for the summer belts to hold up the trousers, then 
boils became much more numerous at the waist. 

There are three stages of the boils or carbuncles: 

1. When it is a small pimple and you think it may or may 
not be a boil. 

2. When it is big enough to lance. 

3. When it has formed the core. In this last stage it sends 
its germs through the blood to form other boils. And you must 
not let it get to the third stage. 

Be sure to lance it as soon as you know it is a boil. Treat 
the opening with strong antiseptic. 

But best of all take advantage of the pimple stage; for then 
every coming boil can be conquered. All you have to do is to 
open the pimple, which is a very trifling matter, and put on 
an y good antiseptic salve, or liquid. Follow this up until the 
pimple has wholly subsided. 

Proper food, constant cleanliness of the skin, clean clothing, 


Nature’s Doctors 


189 


and the avoidance of injuring or rubbing hard against any part 
of the skin will serve to overcome this trouble. 


CATARRH.—This is an accumulation of the dead material 
in the body that results from eating improper foods. It has 
been thoroughly proved that catarrh is impossible when only 
the TRUE FOODS are eaten. A wrong diet may not contain 
actual poisons but may bring into the body much material that 
cannot be assimilated into the blood and tissue and cannot be 
readily thrown off through the lungs, skin, kidneys and canal. 
Its easiest way of escape is through the open mesh of the mem¬ 
branes, and clogging them it becomes catarrh. The remedy is 
simple and permanent; the TRUE FOODS. 


CANCER AND TOBACCO 


Probably the most dangerous, the most filthy, and the most 
painful of all lingering maladies is CANCER. There is very 
little hope of finding a cure. Some facts have been established 
concerning its origin, and yet there is much to be learned be¬ 
fore a definite claim can be made in this regard. At one time 
it seemed that proofs were near at hand that would establish it 
as one of the germ diseases, due to bacteria. But such proofs 
were never found. On the contrary it is probable that no bac¬ 
teria are involved in its origin. 

Flesh is built by a weaving process. 

The tissue that makes flesh is intricately woven by the food 
cells of the blood. As each new weaving takes place the old 
tissue must be disposed of; and this is called breaking down. 
The debris thus thrown into the flesh must be gathered up and 
carried away by the blood in its circulation. In any plant the 
intelligence that weaves the fibre is born in each new cell; and 
it must be an exact mission that is granted it. The cells of the 
rose bush will build the rose; of the apple tree will build the 
apple; of the human body will build human flesh. 

Black, impure blood rushes through the body on the way to 
the heart; but just before it enters the heart, the fresh air that 
has been inhaled into the lungs purifies the blood and changes 
its color into a healthy red. It is the oxygen in the fresh air 





190 Complete Life Building 

that makes this change. But if the inhaled breath does not con¬ 
tain oxygen, the black blood will smother the heart and cause 
it to stop beating; death will follow. 

Tests have been made whereby this needed oxygen in the air 
is partly weakened but not wholly overcome. The most famil¬ 
iar test is that of breathing thin smoke of tobacco on the air that 
enters the lungs; the result being that the blood is partly de¬ 
prived of its power to weave perfect flesh. 

In examining the tissue of a cancerous sore, the first thing 
that attracts attention is the imperfect weaving of the tissue; 
and that which is imperfect in its weaving is also imperfect in 
its breaking down. If it cannot be taken away by the blood, 
some of it remains to form a permanent sore. Every one of 
these conditions follows the injury to the oxygen in the air 
caused by breathing tobacco smoke into it. In a room where a 
person is smoking, it is impossible to inhale air that has not 
had its oxygen contaminated by the invisible but actively pres¬ 
ent tobacco smoke. 

Take a cubic foot of air from the atmosphere out of doors; 
and take another cubic foot of air from a room that seems well 
ventilated but in which some one is or has been smoking. Here 
you have two cubic feet of air; they are easily analyzed; and 
the person who seeks to argue down a proposition, is confronted 
by the results of these tests. They speak for themselves. If 
he wishes, he can make himself believe that the analyses are 
untruthful, that the chemist is unreliable, that chemistry is a 
lost science, and that air fouled with tobacco smoke is as fresh 
and pure as air that is -fresh and pure. 

But the fact remains that air inhaled with the thinnest or 
the thickest fumes of tobacco will NOT WEAVE PERFECT 
FLESH; and imperfectly woven flesh is cancer. 

Then arises the question: Why do not more people have 
cancer ? 

The answer is plain: More people do have cancer. 

In the last two generations the increase of deaths from can¬ 
cer is thirty-two percent; a fearful rate of progress. In the 
last ten years, it has been fourteen percent; a still faster rate 
of increase; fourteen percent in ten years against thirty-two 
percent in two generations. Instead of any increase there should 
have been a marked decrease, as there has been in all other 


Nature’s Doctors 


191 


maladies except paresis of the brain and paralysis of the body. 

Do not rest at ease in the belief that no one has taken cog¬ 
nizance of this dangerous increase in the spread of cancer. Last 
year at a meeting of cancer experts, men who stand at the very 
top of their branch of the medical profession, the President 
made this statement: *‘Mathematics have a faculty of casting 
predictions. Every year for many years, there has been a 
steady pro rata increase in the number of cancer cases. This 
increase was going on last year; it was going on the year be¬ 
fore ; and the year before; and each preceding year; it is going 
on this year; nor will anyone be so unwise as to assume that it 
will not continue in the years to come; but if it does, then 
either mathematics lie or the time will certainly come when 
every man, woman and child will die of cancer. There is no 
other fate possible if this ratio of increase be maintained. ’ 1 

The Governor of a great State has issued a proclamation call¬ 
ing for the observance of a special ‘‘No Tobacco Day,” in which 
he says: “The widespread increase in the use of tobacco is 
slowly undermining the health and vigor of the nation.” 

The President of a University made this statement: “The 
BIG THREE human evils are Syphilis, Tobacco and Cancer. 
The victim of the foulest of venereal disease MUST have to¬ 
bacco ; a net if death does not cut short his career he will end 
with cancer.” The interpretation of this assertion is found in 
the medical profession’s claim that a person who has inherited 
syphilis craves tobacco after once beginning to use it, and must 
have it to hold in check the fearful presence of the venereal 
poison. 

Woven into this fact is the more significant fact that syphilis 
of itself always causes cancer; and that cancerous blood almost 
always has its origin in syphilis. Thus cancer may have two 
sources of origin: the blood taint stated, and the contamination 
of tobacco smoke. A thing may be known by the company it 
keeps; and tobacco is certainly in bad company. 

Nor is tobacco guiltless in other ways. 

Gen. U. S. Grant died of what is known in the medical pro¬ 
fession as “smokers’ cancer of the throat.” Who gave it the 
name of cancer ? It was certainly cancer; there was never any 
doubt about that. Cases seem isolated and the public never 
hears of them unless the victim be prominent; but a doctor who 


192 Complete Life Building 

had followed this one class of cases in the history of cancer, 
says that more than one hundred thousand persons died of 
‘‘smokers’ cancer of the throat” during the period of his prac¬ 
tice; taking in the whole civilized world, probably. Another 
doctor in general practice had a score of such cases to deal with. 
An advertising agent of a newspaper that depended largely on 
tobacco business for its income, took the ground that tobacco 
does not cause any other form of cancer except that of smokers ’ 
throat; but he admitted that such cases were genuine cancer 
and that tobacco caused them. The agent was honest. 

But what would he say to the assertion by another cancer 
expert who had data to prove that another group of cases had 
occurred, over eighty thousand in number, where death fol¬ 
lowed cancers that originated in cuts, scratches and abrasions 
in which tobacco had come in contact with raw flesh; as in the 
familiar case of the noted horseman who had put a cigar against 
his lip where it had been scratched; or the gardener who ap¬ 
plied tobacco stems to a cut on the hand; and numberless simi¬ 
lar incidents. We have not had the opportunity of knowing 
personally a large number of such cases; but, in a limited circle, 
we have seen more than fifty fatal results from the contact of 
tobacco against some cut or exposed part of the body. And in 
every case the malady was true CANCER. 

Therefore, much as we dislike to oppose the great tobacco 
interests, and the many newspapers and magazines that reap a 
golden harvest from advertising tobacco, a sense of duty to the 
world prompts us to say that cancer and tobacco are inevitably 
allied on the one hand, and the craving for tobacco on the other 
hand is instigated by venereal taint, which not many genera¬ 
tions ago was well nigh universal. 

Thus we see cancer being caused by tobacco in three ways; 
any one of which will set the malady active if the venereal 
taint be present in the blood: 

1. Contaminating the air by tobacco smoke. 

2. Wearing a sensitive place on a membrane by contact with 
a flow of smoke, as in the familiar smokers’ cancer of the 
throat. 

3. By contact with the tobacco itself on a raw scratch or 
abrasion of the skin. 

Nothing we can say in this book will convince the slaves of 


Nature’s Doctors 


193 


tobacco of the truth of these facts; unless here and there a few 
of them may have clearly honest minds. People who do not 
want to believe facts will not believe them. 

But if all were honest minded, and if all were disposed to 
accept facts as truth, they would nevertheless be helpless; they 
cannot give up their craving for tobacco as long as they are 
swayed by the fearful unrest of syphilis in their blood. They 
actually need tobacco. It is as cruel to deprive them of to¬ 
bacco as it is to deprive the victim of delirium tremens of 
whiskey, or the raving maniac of the padded cell. 

Not many generations ago nearly all the civilized and un¬ 
civilized world possessed the taint of venereal poison in its 
worst form, syphilis. That the world has grown better is seen 
from the fact that to-day not more than ninety-five percent of 
humanity are so tainted and most of them by inheritance and 
not acquisition. Of this ninety-five percent, probably thirty-five 
percent are fit to marry, although more do in fact marry and 
bring cancerous children into the world, which has something 
to do with the prevailing increase of this malady. The cancer¬ 
ous taint thus inherited does not as a rule develop unless in¬ 
stigated by tobacco in some form, and generally late in life, or 
past middle life. It probably would not develop at all if there 
were no contact with tobacco smoke, or the weed itself. 

The use of the TRUE FOODS dries up this venereal taint, as 
we will prove in any case submitted; and with this lessening of 
the taint, the craving for tobacco ceases; and eventually there 
is perfect immunity from cancer. The willingness and ability 
to give up tobacco become living gauges of the progress of cure; 
first the craving for cigarettes ceases; then the desire for tobacco 
in any form gradually disappears; and the physician knows 
that the taint is passing out forever. 

The study of the tribes that dwell in the far parts of the 
earth shows some facts that are worthy of attention, although 
they carry no direct proof of the claim that might be based 
upon them. 

The National Geographic Society of America published an 
account of an island race of people whose history had been in¬ 
vestigated under the auspices of that Society; and it was 
learned that the tribe had been wholly free from the dreaded 
blood taint until it was introduced among them by Spaniards 


194 Complete Life Building 

two or three generations ago; after which the disease made 
rapid headway, and the race has nearly died off, but few of 
the old stock now surviving. 

With the introduction of this malady, as it was learned by 
other investigators, came the use of tobacco, and later on the 
appearance of cancer, neither of which had been known before. 

Another tribe was found that had never used tobacco, and 
had never had a case of cancer. Travelers and explorers in 
various parts of the world have found the same facts true; 
where tobacco was unknown, cancer had never been present. 

But the fact that peoples who have never used tobacco in 
any form, are wholly free from cancer; while those who inhale 
its smoke or come in contact with the weed itself furnish all the 
cases of cancer; compels us to associate the two as cause and 
effect. 

Whatever the source, the remedy lies in the use of the TRUE 
FOODS which purify the blood, dry up the original taint, and 
clean the whole system, slowly, but surely. 

COLDS and SORE THROAT.—The first approach of a 
cold, so-called, is huskiness of the voice, which means that the 
throat is getting sore. Take a congested stomach as the result 
of any of the foods noted under PROFANITY in this Section, 
and let this congestion creep up the passages until it reaches 
the throat, then add dust from old books, papers, city windows, 
recently swept carpets, or any other source, and as all dust 
carries germs in abundance, you have the basis for a vigorous 
cold. Congested stomach, and dust laden germs are the whole 
story. Omit the congestion, and you will not catch cold from 
dust or germs. Most people fight the dust, and modern meth¬ 
ods of vacuum sweeping are very clever; but colds go on just 
the same, and will go on as long as any of the foods listed under 
PROFANITY in this Section are indulged in. As a precau¬ 
tion, or when a cold starts, place on the tongue in the back of 
the mouth a small lump of antiseptic salve, and inhale it into 
the throat; and do likewise with each nostril. These bits of 
salve will kill germs that are in and others that try to enter. 
But, best of all, adopt the TRUE FOODS. 

CONGESTION.—Here we have the arch enemy of life and 
health, and what this enemy does should be fully understood. 
In what are called lesions, or injuries to parts of the body, there 


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195 


are several states; and the mildest is known as congestion; the 
more severe is called inflammation; and the climax comes in 
the form of some outbreak of an acute nature. 

Doctors who make special studies of the stomach state that in 
every one thousand people, 999 have congestion of the stomach 
and the surrounding parts; nearly all chronic; some in mild 
form, some more serious, and a few are passing into conditions 
known as inflammation of some organ, as inflammation of the 
stomach, or liver, or kidneys ; but all originating in congestion 
of the stomach at the beginning. Any doctor of experience can 
tell by looking in your mouth if you have inflammation of the 
stomach. Why? What has the mouth to do with it? Why 
are the tongue and throat red when the stomach is thus at¬ 
tacked? Because, as stated under Asthma, the congestion of the 
stomach travels; and so does the inflammation, which is only a 
severer form of the other trouble. It does not take long for 
either lesion to reach the mouth. Here we have the necessary 
origin of sore throat, asthma, colds, la grippe, influenza, diph¬ 
theria, and other maladies, not one of which could be possible 
without congestion of the stomach as a starter. 

Having found this much to be the fact, it is now apparent 
that, as congestion cannot follow the use of the true foods, it 
must be the result of a false diet. The cure and the preven¬ 
tion rest in the same treatment, use the right diet, and avoid 
the wrong diet. 

CONSTIPATION.—Here is another deadly foe of health and 
long life. When we have conquered congestion and constipa¬ 
tion, we have won nine out of ten battles, and in two wars. 
This most dangerous trouble is Nature’s warning against the 
use of refined white flour, refined corn meal, corn starch, re¬ 
fined sugar and too much meat. As long as these things are 
eaten as the chief basis of life, so long will constipation exist. 
But they are not the sole cause. The habit of drinking milk 
leads to constipation; so do cooked eggs; and rice in any form ; 
as well as tea and coffee, and almost any stimulant. Aiding this 
line of errors, is lack of physical activity. Medicines, drugs, 
pills, and all foreign material are fruitful causes. 

It has been proved that once a person gets rid of constipa¬ 
tion, the use of the TRUE FOODS is all that will be required 
to remain normal in this respect. But to rid oneself of the 


196 Complete Life Building 

trouble is not so easy. Until this has been accomplished we 
advise omitting eggs, meal, white flour cooking, milk, cream, 
and products of milk like cheese, except butter. The latter is 
very helpful. Avoid mineral oil as it is dangerous. Doctors 
who recommend it may have stock in some Oil corporation. 

Use freely all the other TRUE FOODS described in this 
book; exercise freely daily; and spend half an hour mornings 
kneading the abdomen with the hands, beginning an hour be¬ 
fore breakfast following the eating of an apple. 

“COLD SORES ON THE LIPS” 

It has been believed and even stated by many doctors that 
cold sores are due to a bad condition of the blood. 

Other explanations have included the claim that a cold is 
indicated by the presence of this minor trouble. 

Still others profess to believe that contact with a person who 
possesses a cold sore, will transfer it to another, as where two 
persons kiss each other, one of whom has a cold sore. 

With a bad condition of the blood as the basis, the cold sore 
is brought into existence by germs from teeth that have been 
slightly neglected, or perhaps wholly neglected. Kissing is 
quite sure to pick up some of those germs, and is a means of 
transferring the trouble to others. 

An examination of the contents of a cold sore proves with¬ 
out failure the presence of poison germs that can be taken at 
the same time from the neglected teeth; both groups of germs 
are alike. It can be easily shown that where the teeth are thor¬ 
oughly cleaned with antiseptic wash three times a day, cold 
sores will not appear, no matter how poor the blood may be. 

A cold sore is, therefore, while not exactly a badge of shame, 
a notice to all the world that the teeth have been slightly neg¬ 
lected, if not perhaps seriously neglected. The worst cases of 
cold sores are found among people who never give the teeth an 
antiseptic cleansing. 

The same cause will lead to sore mouth and tongue. 

It is easy to secure, at low cost, many kinds of antiseptic 
wash, for they are on sale everywhere. Most persons clean the 
teeth mornings after arising; and at night before retiring; but 
there are three meals in between these events; and it is best to 
add at least two more cleanings if not three. Use some good 


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197 


antiseptic wash, and do your kissing by the Oriental method of 
rubbing noses; or better still by rubbing elbows. 

CRAMPS AND NUMBNESS 

A familiar illustration of the action of non-foods, and poi¬ 
sons set up by many foods, is found in the common occurrence 
of cramps and numbness of the nerves. A cramp pain is gen¬ 
erally severe. It renders . .e victim almost helpless until it 
passes away. It often comes in the leg and the calf is attacked 
at times, or the muscles inside the upper parts of the legs may 
be the seat of the trouble; or the hands, arms or sides may 
suffer. So overwhelming is this temporary pain that a swim¬ 
mer may lose his life before he can gain control of his muscles. 

It has been known for a long time that food or poison is the 
cause of cramps; drugs, pills, stimulants, as well as nearly all 
the non-foods may set up this pain. We give the result of tests 
made during the past few years, to show some of the causes of 
the malady: 

1. A person who was subject to cramps, found that they fol¬ 
lowed the taking of certain pills; when these pills were omitted, 
no cramps occurred; but on taking the pills, the trouble re¬ 
turned, and almost at a fixed time after the pills had been 
taken. And always in the calf of the leg. 

2. The use of chocolate among the soldiers during the late 
war was often followed by cramps; but the latter were traced 
to certain kinds of chocolate which was known under a familiar 
name, and was popular in many countries. A group of soldiers 
who were victims of this trouble were subjected to experiments 
with the result always certain in every case. When they suf¬ 
fered from cramps, it was in the evening of the day they had 
eaten or drank the brand of chocolate. For six days in suc¬ 
cession they used the chocolate, and each evening without fail 
they suffered from severe attacks of cramps. For the next six 
days, they omitted all use of the chocolate, and were wholly free 
from cramps. The next six days they returned to the use of 
chocolate, and the cramps returned also in full force. They 
and the doctors were convinced of the cause of the distress. 

3. There are other kinds of cramps that are not related in 
any way to those of the muscles; but they are more often colic 
pains due to fermentation of food or contents of some passage. 


198 Complete Life Building 

Thus if you drink milk instead of eating it with bread, you send 
a mass of liquid cheese into the stomach which soon curdles 
and becomes solid; cramps may be the result; and colic may 
follow the passage of this cheese through the intestines. The 
food itself is not a poison in this case, but is rendered so by 
the wrong way of using it. Had this same milk been mixed 
with old bread toasted and broken into it, no distress would 
have followed; instead of pains and colic, with lack of nutri¬ 
tion, the body would have been greatly nourished. Thus good 
food may be made a poison, or may be highly valuable accord¬ 
ing to the manner of its use. 

4. When some part of the body goes to sleep, or becomes 
numb, the cause may be the same as when there are cramps. In 
one case the nerves are attacked; in the other the muscles suffer. 
The latter are cramped; the former are put to sleep. This 
numbness has been traced many times to the use of pills, drugs, 
tea, coffee, or some non-food. Nearly all tea drinkers sooner 
or later suffer from numbness of the nerves, which may most 
unexpectedly turn into fatal paralysis. 

5. But there are many kinds of foods, and some drinks, that 
will set up habitual sleepiness or numbness of some part of the 
body. 

Whether it appears in cramps or numbness, the actual dam¬ 
age is done to some vital nerve-center. The nerves are the 
electrical system of the body, and must be sustained by nutri¬ 
tious food; their life is obtained from the vitality of pure, real, 
wholesome food; and from nothing else. The man or woman 
who thinks something else can be supplied in the place of such 
food is preparing the way for suffering and distress, and possi¬ 
ble death; the nerve centers are being poisoned, and thev re¬ 
sent it. J 

The approach of diabetes is indicated by muscle cramps; and 
should be averted when there is yet time to stop it. 

DANDRUFF, LOSS OF HAIR, SCALP DISEASES 
BALDNESS 

The scalp is a soil. 

The hairs of the head are plants that attempt to grow in this 
soil. 

Like any plant, the product is no better than the soil. If 


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199 


fruit trees need certain elements of nature and the soil does 
not contain them, there will be no fruit. You cannot neglect to 
put in the needed elements and then expect to take out the de¬ 
sired results. 

Treating the scalp for dandruff and disease is like cleaning 
the carpets in your house where a constant stream of pollution 
is pouring over them from an outside source. It is an act of 
wisdom to go to the source of the trouble and remove the pollu¬ 
tion at that end. Cleaning the carpets from time to time is 
working at the wrong end. Fighting dandruff of the scalp is 
working at the wrong end. 

Dandruff is a display of nature intended to show you what 
comes of eating non-food material. It is matter that does not 
enter into the making of the body, and therefore seeks to 
get out in any way open to it. When you adopt the GREAT 
LAW OF LAWS, and are One Hundred Percent RIGHT in 
your Food Selection, you will never have dandruff, and one 
great cause of the loss of hair will be removed. 

But hair cannot be made to grow from food that lacks the 
hair-making material. You who are losing your hair, start 
eating food that contains hair-making material, and the loss 
will be suddenly checked. 

People who do not want to believe this, will recall the long 
years of fight to prevent and cure rickets in children, soft 
bones, bow legs and similar troubles. Medicines failed. The 
cure did not come until the right food materials were fed; then 
it was found that a cure was possible in this class of maladies, 
and a prevention always certain. If food does not contain bone¬ 
making material the body will suffer. If food does not con¬ 
tain hair-making material, it will be impossible to raise hair. 

If you make use of the true foods, while they are being di¬ 
gested and assimilated in the blood, say one or two hours after 
eating, adopt the following practice to bring the new and pure 
blood into the scalp and thus feed the hair. It will promote a 
new growth based on the chemical value of the foods eaten: 

Place the palms of the two hands on the scalp just above 
each ear, and move the scalp up and down without sliding the 
hands over it. Then move it forward and back in a horizontal 
action; then with a rotary motion as far as can be done without 
slipping the palms on the hair. 


200 


Complete Life Building 

Now transfer the hands to the top of the head, on each side 
of the crest of the skull, and repeat all three motions. Finally 
use the tips of the fingers for similar action at the hack part 
of the head. 

This practice can be best done in the evening, and for a 
period of about five minutes each evening. It not only brings 
the blood and its hair making material to the roots in the scalp, 
but also helps the healthful circulation through the brain by its 
indirect influence. 

A few college students and some other bright young men 
have conceived the idea that going bare-headed will stimulate 
the hair roots and yield a heavy growth of hair; but the results 
of this method have not borne fruit. It is not necessary to go 
bare-headed if you are eating the foods that contain the hair¬ 
making elements; and if you are not eating such foods your 
hair will fall out just as fast with your hat off as with it on. 
The inhabitants of the frozen lands who have nothing to eat 
but fats lose the luxuriant growth of hair that a cold climate 
naturally invites; for which reason they seek and secure game, 
or flesh that is sure to hold all the hair-making material that is 
needed. Two Persian cats were fed as follows: one had his 
house outdoors during the winter and lived on water, rice, 
white bread and potatoes, with fats of meat; and he lost the 
heavy growth of hair natural to his tribe. The other cat was 
kept indoors all winter and ate milk, meat, salmon, and other 
foods that he liked; with the result that he grew a very heavy 
crop of long, thick hair; proving that climate is not alone the 
stimulant to hair growing. 

DIABETES.—While the cause of this mysterious malady is 
very little known, it has been observed that a blow at the base 
of the brain or top of the spinal column will bring on the trou¬ 
ble. This is called the physical cause. It has also been well 
proved that worry when intense and prolonged, or sudden and 
overwhelming, will give rise to the same malady. This is known 
as the mental cause. Then it is suspected that something that 
enters the system in food or drink is responsible for the trou¬ 
ble; and this is termed the dietary cause. The last named is 
charged with a large majority of the cases. However we are 
of the opinion that worry has done more harm in this way 
than is supposed. 


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201 


The kind of diabetes that is the most dangerous has the name 
of mellitus. It gives no warning in many instances, and but 
little under any circumstances; and ends in death after run¬ 
ning its course. It is attended by unusual thirst, and an ex¬ 
cessive flow of urine containing great quantities of sugar. The 
body wastes away; in time sores and gangrene appear; and the 
end comes often through abnormal sleep. 

Less is known of this disease, both as to its cause and treat¬ 
ment, than of any other leading malady. Doctors have tried 
in vain to discover the basic influence that sets up diabetes; 
they have traced it from the third brain, or medulla, to the 
liver, and thence to the inward parts of the body, even to some 
minute and hidden process, but nothing has been learned by 
the medical profession that solves the mystery of its origin. 
The location of its source is one thing, and the manner in which 
it begins its fatal work is another. 

Equally uncertain and aimless is the method of treatment 
and the attempted cure. Doctors admit they are helplessly at 
sea. 

Because great quantities of sugar pass out in the urine, it is 
assumed that sugar causes diabetes; and, therefore, that the 
kin-foods of sugar, such as the starches, are likewise guilty. 
But in all the years of this assumption and its consequent treat¬ 
ment, there has never yet been one iota of proof that sugars and 
starches cause the disease. 

The Ralston Health Club therefore says to the medical pro¬ 
fession: You must begin all over again the study of diabetes, 
its cause, the best method of dealing with it, and the chances 
of cure. You have been wrong for generations; you have never 
yet saved one patient; the best you have done is to prolong a 
miserable life now and then; and you know nothing of the 
malady. Your diet has been wrong all the while. 

It is undoubtedly due to an abnormal condition of the nerves 
that control the liver and the organs that depend on the vital¬ 
ity of the liver. In other words, it is “insanity of the liver and 
its aids.” But this means nothing if it cannot be dealt with 
by a curative treatment. These vital parts of the body require 
their daily renewal through the flow of pure blood; they seek 
the fourteen chemical elements that make up that flow in a 
healthy body. They thrive in that way only. Anything in the 


202 


Complete Life Building 

blood that is foreign to their needs, is a poison; and nothing is 
more readily poisoned than the liver. 

This being true, then it is clear that the first step towards a 
cure is to ascertain what foods contain the fourteen elements, 
and what contain foreign material; making use of the former 
and avoiding the latter. This is common sense. 

For forty years we have investigated all kinds of cases of 
diabetes, and have found the following to be true: 

1. We have never heard of a case where the drinking and 
cooking water was obtained from deep wells. 

2. In places where the malady seems to most abound, the 
drinking water is all of the surface kind. This means that it is 
from rivers, brooks, ponds or lakes. Did you ever drink water 
that had a flavor of gas, or of decayed vegetation ? It is smoky 
in its taste. It has been filtered by the most approved modern 
methods; it has been boiled long and hard; but the TASTE 
REMAINS. That taste indicates the poison to which we will 
refer. It shows that boiling and filtering fail to remove a cer¬ 
tain something from the water. They kill the living germs; 
but there are poisons that cannot be killed by any process, for 
they have become a part of the water. Paris green or arsenic 
cannot be destroyed after being put in water; they go along 
wherever water will go. 

3. All surface water has flowed over the land, and under 
trees and shrubs. There is no land anywhere that is not in¬ 
habited by insects; or over which countless birds do not fly 
and roost. Every acre contains millions of these forms of life. 
All insects exude manure and urine; and birds drop both with 
unceasing frequency. Ponds, lakes, rivers and brooks are made 
up of water that has flowed over the land, and that is neces¬ 
sarily saturated with the urine and manure of countless mil¬ 
lions of these small forms of life. One such deposit is trifling; 
but the combined deposits of billions make a great total. 

4. What becomes of the poisons that are thus put into the 
water? If there are germs, they are killed by boiling. If there 
are obstructions, they are partly removed by filtration. But 
these poisons become a part of the water itself. Filtration and 
boiling do not remove the hydrogen in the water, nor the oxy¬ 
gen ; nor any dissolved poison. 

5. If you will study, as we have, the history of this disease, 


Nature’s Doctors 203 

yon will find that it is found solely in localities where the drink¬ 
ing and cooking water comes from a surface origin. 

6. While diabetes is due to material in the blood that is for¬ 
eign to the needs of the body, it must be true that some of the 
foreign elements are more guilty than others in causing this 
trouble. But the safe rule is to adopt a diet that will overcome 
these influences; therefore we prescribe the following course 
of treatment: 

Fresh Air. Increase the lung capacity steadily and per¬ 
sistently. 

Exercise. This disease is held in check by such forms of out¬ 
door activity as invite the increased flow of the blood, and the 
more vigorous action of the lungs. 

Water. Use only distilled water if you can get it for drink¬ 
ing and cooking. Next best is rain water. Next after that is 
deep well water. 

Food. The most approved and beneficial food in this treat¬ 
ment is the baked potato, eaten with the skins on, either but¬ 
tered or with cream and salt, or milk and salt. Chew the skins 
long and fine before swallowing them. If the excess of sugar 
continues in the urine, discard the insides of the potatoes after 
they are baked, and eat only the skins and about one-fourth of 
an inch of the part next to the skin. These could be eaten in 
any quantity desired, three times a day. They become very 
palatable if properly prepared. Very new potatoes, and old 
ones that have become waxy are to be avoided. 

The next best article of food is a raw egg beaten in a glass 
of whole raw milk that has not been pasteurized. This can be 
taken at every meal, and at night just before retiring. Next 
in value is buttermilk, which helps wonderfully to sustain the 
strength and rebuild the body. Milk, cream, butter, all meat 
fats that are not cooked to a crisp, beef, lamb, mutton, stale 
bread that has been toasted and served either in milk or made 
into a custard pudding, all kinds of dry fruits such as raisins, 
dates, figs, etc., are good. Cup custards also are useful; as is 
pure ice cream. Hominy cooked all night in a fireless cooker; 
and oat meal likewise cooked; as well as corn meal eaten as a 
pudding or fried into a mush, provided the meal has been 
cooked three or more hours before eating in any form. All 
fruits in their season if fully ripe, may be eaten. Fish, oysters, 


204 Complete Life Building 

stews, soups, broths, poultry, game and similar lines of food are 
beneficial. 

The prevailing diet prescribed by doctors for diabetics, has 
practically starved them. It has been wrong in theory and in 
fact. It was based on the belief that, if sugar appeared in the 
urine in great quantities, then sweets and starches must be the 
chief cause of the disease. It was only a presumption. 

The above diet, instead of starving the patient, will build 
him up. 

DIPHTHERIA.—This malady has been the cause of slaying 
millions of people of all ages, Mostly those in childhood or in 
their teens. The first real steps taken to check its ravages were 
those that sought to prevent its invasion of the home. But 
once it got hold of its victim, it brought death in a large pro¬ 
portion of cases; and it spread rapidly from house to house. 

After learning how to prevent it by teaching cleanliness of 
the body, and of the surroundings, and especially of the mouth 
and throat, added to the habit of nose breathing, the fatalities 
decreased. 

But it was not until the use of a serum injection was discov¬ 
ered that the real mastery of the malady was secured. If quick 
action be taken at the beginning, it is possible to save life. 

THE EYESIGHT 

1. The eyes follow, or really keep pace with the health; in 
fact with the condition of the blood. So well known is this fact 
that any doctor is able, by looking into the eye, to determine 
not only the impurity of the blood, but the presence of organic 
disease. The BASIS, therefore, of eye-health is secured by 
the GREAT LAW OF LAWS: One Hundred Percent RIGHT 
in Food Selection. 

2. There are many small lines of advice as to the care of 
the eyes, which, while all valuable, need not be repeated here; 
the most notable of them being: Never use the eyes to read 
when facing the light; never use them on moving cars; never 
use them on a stomach long empty; never use them in a dim 
light, as in twilight or gloomy places; never use them when the 
lids itch or burn. 

3. GERMS that float from the dust of the air and lodge on 


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205 


the lids set up granulation not only of the lids, but of the eye¬ 
ball itself, and even penetrate into the contents of the eye. As 
long as there are germs there must be antiseptics. The following 
eye-wash can be made at home for a trifling cost: 

HOME EYE-WASH 

Get sixteen grains of sulphate of zinc; and 160 grains of 
powdered alum. Put these in one quart of distilled water. 
You can make this yourself; the total cost is or should be less 
than twenty cents. 

It will last a family for several years. When the eyes are 
tired, or when the lids burn or itch, close them tightly, and rub 
a few drops of this wash along and well into the edges of the 
lids. Keep the lids closed for a minute or more. Repeat until 
all redness or itching is gone. This wash will prevent styes 
and various forms of disease due to bad food selection and air- 
dust germs which are sure to lodge on the lids and eventually 
get into the eyes. There are thousands of Ralston families 
where this wash has been in use for many years, and there has 
never been any eye-trouble. 

4. FAILING SIGHT.—This is due to several causes: Wrong 
Food Selection which makes bad blood; organic trouble; a tooth 
the root of which is decayed and which is poisoning the blood; 
misuse as stated in paragraph 2, herein; and a change in the 
shape of the eye-ball. 

5. When glasses are made necessary by the last named cause, 
the change in the shape of the eye-ball, as in old age or pre¬ 
mature alteration in the eye, the remedy is in the following 
restoration of the shape of the ball, which has been accomplished 
thousands of times by the movements of the muscles. 

Learn to raise the eyes; then lower them; and to hold them 
level. 

Without raising or lowering the head, look up at the ceiling; 
down at the floor; and in front on a level with the face. 

Learn next to look far to the right; then far to the left. 

By combining these two series of positions you can make nine 

in all. 

Make a chart of these nine positions; let 1 be the center; 2 
the right middle; 3 the left middle; 4 the upper center; 5 the 


206 


Complete Life Building 

right upper; 6 the left upper; 7 the lower center; 8 the right 
lower; 9 the left lower. 

To accomplish the best results the movements must in time 
be made as extreme as possible. They proceed as follows: 1 to 
2, 2 to 3, 3 to 2, 2 to 3, back and forth twenty times. Then 

4 to 5, 5 to 6, 6 to 5, 5 to 6, and back and forth in upper realm 
twenty times. Then 7 to 8, 8 to 9, 9 to 8, 8 to 9, 9 to 8, back 
and forth in lower realm twenty times. Then 5 to 9, 9 to 5, 

5 to 9, back and forth diagonally twenty times. Then 6 to 8, 
8 to 6, 6 to 8, back and forth diagonally twenty times. 

The muscles in this way bring back the normal shape of the 
eyeball; in thousands of cases of this kind, Ralstonites have 
discarded eye glasses. 

The sight becomes strong and vigorous, and the vision clear. 

It will take several weeks or months of persistent daily prac¬ 
tice to re-shape the eyeballs. Start slowly as the first use of 
these muscles will make them tender, and perhaps sore. 

Calling the blood to the zone of sight is a pleasing and very 
effective method of maintaining the conditions of youthful 
power. It is done as follows: 

If you make use of the true foods, then select a time when 
their value is being assimilated into the blood; say one or two 
hours after eating, the evening being perhaps the most con¬ 
venient. Get any good cold cream, or coco-butter and spread 
some over the forehead close to the eyelids, and some on each 
temple. Use the palms of the hands, both at once, and close to 
the wrists in the following movements. Without sliding the 
hands over the skin, move the skin of the temples up and down 
as close to the eyes as possible. Follow this with a rotary mo¬ 
tion in the same place. 

Then with the fingers move the skin above the lids in an up 
and down motion, then right and left, and finally in a rotary 
action. 

The true foods will send pure blood into the eyes and will 
feed and stimulate the nerves of vision. In a few months the 
effect will be so marked that your friends will marvel at the 
change in you. 

You cannot overdo this practice, but five or ten minutes each 
evening will suffice. 

After you are through, wipe off the cold cream with a very 


Nature’s Doctors 


207 


dry towel. It is not necessary for a woman to apply water to 
these parts of the face as the cream is perfectly cleansing. 

FATTY DEGENERATION.—This may occur in the liver, 
heart, or other part of the body. It is due solely to a wrong 
diet; and is cured very easily, although slowly, by using the 
TRUE FOODS. Of course, if a person were to indulge in an 
unbalanced diet of the true foods, as in the use of too much 
sugar, or starchy articles, this trouble might follow, but even 
so it is hardly likely. 

GALL STONES.—This malady comes from drinking hard 
water and from eating too heavily of unwholesome foods, such 
as tomatoes, pork, pastry, fried things, etc. Adopt the diet of 
the One Hour Class for a while; then add that of the Two Hour 
Class. The only food that will dissolve gall stones is skimmed 
milk, and that does it very slowly; not fast enough to counter¬ 
act the effect of a continued bad diet. 

GRIPPE.—The malady called La Grippe came over this way 
more than a generation ago, and was severe. Since then we 
have had a milder form of it, with some variation in the germs 
employed; until the recent influenza has brought back memo¬ 
ries of the first visitation of the epidemic. 

What is said under the title of the Influenza should be read 
now. 

When you feel the sensation of dizziness in the head, attend¬ 
ing a cold, it is the grippe. Lie down. No matter what your 
duties are, try to rest in a prone position, and sleep if possible. 
Take a diet of raw eggs and milk five times a day; one egg in a 
glass of milk each time; and take nothing else but cold water. 

HAIR.—See Dandruff on a preceding page. 

HAY FEVER—ROSE COLD.—These kindred maladies are 
supposed to be incurable. They are said to be caused by pollen 
on weeds and flowers; but can we say that the match that sets 
off the fuse to a bomb is the cause of the explosion? If the 
fuse were not there, and if the bomb were not there, the match 
would not of itself have blown up the building. Nor would 
pollen, or rag weed, or any flower bring on an attack of hay 
fever if some preceding causes were not present. There are 
two such causes: 

1. Congestion of the liver and stomach. 

2. Lack of calcium chloride in the blood. 


208 Complete Life Building 

The congestion can be surely cured by using the TRUE 
FOODS. 

But it is not easy to put into the blood the needed Calcium 
Chloride in the form of organized vegetable cells. Yet we 
know that salt never is organized in vegetable cells and that it 
is needed daily; we refer to common table salt, known as 
sodium chloride. Here we have part of the food elements re¬ 
quired to overcome hay fever. The calcium is present in many 
of the TRUE FOODS. 

However a direct help must be found, and we come upon one 
of the very few exceptions to the rule that all food should be 
organized in life cells. We therefore present the following 
prescription for 

THE CURE OF HAY FEVER AND ROSE COLD 

50 grains calcium chloride, dry. 500 cubic centimeters of 
distilled water. Take one teaspoonful in water half an hour 
after each meal, or three times daily. Begin at once and con¬ 
tinue every day in the year. 

HEADACHES.—This is the most common of the maladies 
that are in evidence. It is as old as the race. Some men have 
it, and most women. The latter go about with cloths on the 
heads or at their temples, suffering; and have never been told 
that headaches come from very simple causes, as follows: 

The most common cause is an empty stomach. Ralstonism 
has probably cured hundreds of thousands of cases by insisting 
on five meals a day, or even six, all light. Take a substantial 
and wholesome breakfast; then in two hours a lunch; after this 
the dinner, light but wholesome; then a mid-afternoon lunch; 
after this the supper; and, if need be, a light lunch before re¬ 
tiring. Ninety-nine out of every hundred are “empty stomach 
headaches.” It seems simple enough. Try it. 

Let tea alone. A person who is subject to headaches can 
never be relieved as long as this poison is used. If you drink 
coffee, never take it alone, but only in very small quantity after 
eating, not during the meal. 

For light lunches in the forenoons, afternoons and just be¬ 
fore retiring, nothing is better than milk, or milk tablets, or 
soup made of milk and potatoes, or beef broth with old bread 
toasted and soaked in it, or chicken broth, lamb broth, oyster 


Nature’s Doctors 


209 


stew, or similar food; the purpose being to avoid heavy meals, 
and yet prevent the stomach from getting empty. The old 
theory that this organ needs rest has been changed to mean that 
it needs rest from overwork. As it is only a sack through the 
opening of which its macerated contents are poured, there is 
no chance to injure it by constant activity. 

Another cause of headaches is indigestion, coming from foods 
of the NEVER CLASS, or the Four Hour and Five Hour 
Classes. The cure is apparent. 

Bad circulation, as when the blood presses too heavily upon 
the brain and is not drawn off readily, often results in head¬ 
ache attended by the feeling of fulness in the top of the head. 
This brings insomnia, and you are referred to that treatment. 

Deep breathing thins the blood in the head, and draws it off 
into the proper channels of circulation. Under neuralgia, we 
treat another common kind of headache, which see. 

HEART FAILURE.—When this organ ceases to beat the 
life of the body goes out no matter how well it may be. Some¬ 
times so slight a cause as the poison gas from indigestion may 
bring the fatal end in a few seconds. The first caution, there¬ 
fore, is to be directed to the diet. 

It is a rule that the heart is no better than the blood that 
runs through it; for it is built daily from that river of nutri¬ 
tion. People eat countless articles that are called food, but that 
are not bloodmakers; and these prevent the construction of the 
tissue of that organ as a perfect piece of work. 

The human body, including the heart, requires fourteen ele¬ 
ments in its food. The actual number of useless elements that 
people eat and drink are more than double fourteen. These, 
instead of giving nourishment, are in the way, and must be 
fought out of the system. This takes nervous energy, over¬ 
taxes the vitality, and leads to weakness. The first organ to 
fail in its operations is the heart. Wholesome food in proper 
quantity will rebuild every part of the body; and, on the other 
hand, will not tear down its important functions. 

HEARING, FAULTY 

1. The basis of good hearing is the perfect health of the ear 
itself; and this is secured by the GREAT LAW OF LAWS; 
One Hundred Percent Right in Food Selection. 


210 Complete Life Building 

2. Dust from without and broken down mucus dried within 
clog the passage and often produce deafness. Once a month use 
an ear syringe which can be procured at most any drug store, 
and inject warm salt water gently in the ear passage until it 
is clear. 

3. Once daily give the ear a massage as follows: First, in¬ 
sert the tip of the little finger in the opening and vibrate it in 
all directions so as to exercise the interior flesh of the ear. 
Second, with the flat of the hand placed close above the ear, 
move the scalp up and down, right and left, and in a rotary 
movement. Third, do the same with the flat of the hand placed 
under the ear; then at the right; and finally at the left of the 
ear. These forms of massage bring a strong flow of blood to 
the ear and all its adjacent parts. This new flow of blood if 
laden with Foods Selected under the GREAT LAW OF LAWS, 
will in fact build new flesh, and literally improve the hearing. 

There is no reason why ninety percent of people should be¬ 
come deaf in old age; or, as many do, in middle age. 

The above treatment has been employed for years in count¬ 
less cases, and without a single failure where the requirements 
have all been observed. 

If you use the true foods, then while they are in process of 
digesting and being assimilated by the blood, say, one or two 
hours after eating, make use of the above massage; after the 
evening meal being the most convenient time; but any other 
period will suffice, once each day. 

HARDENING OF THE ARTERIES.—Everything that 
lives ripens; and everything that exists proceeds to some new 
condition. The solid rock of the earth has a destiny quite 
apart from its present state. So the body of man ripens. If 
it were not to advance to this end, it would proceed to some 
new condition in the course of time. 

The claim is being made by thinking men that human life 
may be prolonged indefinitely. Even so conservative a man as 
the Honorable Doctor Copeland, United States Senator, ad¬ 
vises every man and woman to join the One Hundred Year 
Club. 

Trees get old and fall to pieces before the repeated gales of 
winter. The best fed horses live half a century, but they die 
because they enter sooner or later into the ripening stage; and 


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211 


this stage is marked by Nature in a very simple manner, which 
is called hardening of the arteries. “A woman is as old as 
she feels; a man is as old as his arteries.” Both in fact are as 
old as their arteries; feeling or no feeling; for the progress of 
the hardening stage brings on age and senility. The brain 
hardens slowly, and old people cannot change their opinions 
very easily, owing to this lack of mental flexibility. The blood 
vessels of the heart gradually harden, and a normal blood 
pressure of 160 in a man of sixty might be a dangerous condition 
in a man of thirty. As the vessels and arteries get harder they 
fill up more and more, leaving less space for the blood to flow 
through; undue pressure may occur under the stress of anger, 
lifting, or hurry, and a weak spot will be found that will give 
way; then there is the funeral; all is over; the ripening has 
reached its climax. 

We do not believe that ripening is necessary. 

It is due very clearly to an unbalanced diet that leaves the 
deposit of material that in time clogs the veins and vessels. If 
you do not know how the radiator of an automobile is made, 
ask some person to tell you. It is a mass of arteries. If the 
water that is put in it is what is called hard, it contains lime, 
and this mineral in time will leave a thin film on the inner 
surfaces of the honeycomb arteries of the radiator. The con¬ 
tinued use of hard water will gradually fill up the interior 
spaces until the circulation is greatly impeded; and the blood 
pressure is about 180. The little pump will have more work to 
do to meet this clogged condition. But there will come a time 
when it must slow down; ripening has taken place; and the 
heart, which is the pump, ceases. Human life comes to a simi¬ 
lar end from exactly the same cause. Hard water, and the 
dregs of cooking where the distilled value has been boiled 
away on the fire, as well as an excess of minerals in meats and 
other foods, set up ripening. 

A horse lives ordinarily to be twenty or thirty years old; by 
great care in feeding he has lived to be fifty; yet the owner of 
that horse did not know that death at that advanced age was 
due to hard water and too great a proportion of minerals in 
the foods given the animal. If he had discarded the limed 
water and used soft or rain water in its place; and if he knew 
exactly what proportion of minerals the horse required to re- 


212 


Complete Life Building 

pair the daily waste and breakdown of the body, the animal 
could easily have reached the age of one hundred. 

If you are suffering from hardening of the arteries, the first 
thing to do is to start a diet composed only of the TRUE 
FOODS. Then take something liquid that will dissolve the 
material that has adhered to the inner surfaces of the blood 
vessels. Distilled water, if well aerated as described under the 
subject of Ultimate Civilization, is such a solvent; so is rain 
water, if you can catch it from the clouds before it has absorbed 
too much of the dirt of the earth and buildings; this is even 
better than distilled water for the reason that it is better 
aerated. Field basins have been made to collect rain water; 
but after the rain has fallen for some time on a roof, it is 
nearly clean. 

All the juice fruits mentioned under the TRUE FOODS 
contain distilled water in still better form; but only the royal 
juice of the apple and the grape should be used in those fruits; 
this juice being close to the skin and free from the acid that 
lies nearer the center. Ripe red cherries, of the juicy kind, 
dissolve the hard material. The same is true of the juice of 
peaches, if not acid. Pears also serve the same end in lesser 
degree. Grape juice as sold on the market is not good, as it 
contains the acid of the pulp of the grape; and all fruit acids 
injure the arteries by making the hardening material harder. 
Cider, alcohol, beer, vinegar, sour apples, sour cherries, fresh 
currants, pieplant, cranberries, gooseberries, and any acid fruits 
that have been sweetened to give them an agreeable taste, are 
all guilty causes of hardening of the arteries; they attract the 
excess of lime and other minerals and hold them in the blood 
vessels. Alcohol does this more persistently than any other 
agency. In New England where the farmers are fond of cider, 
there is the greatest percentage of this malady; yet the royal 
juice, which is close under the skin of a very mellow apple, 
acts oppositely, as it is a solvent. 

Massage is an excellent aid to such a diet; but is a very 
tedious performance, as the whole body should be subjected to 
it twice a day, a half hour at a time. 

The liver sometimes hardens; but the cause is either alcohol 
or the use of acids like those just described. 

INDIGESTION.—It might be said that this whole book is 


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213 


the treatment for this trouble; for it cannot possibly exist if a 
person will adopt these teachings as a whole. For acute attacks 
read what has been said under Acute Indigestion earlier in this 
Section. 

INFLUENZA—SPANISH.—This wartime malady had its 
cause in the shortage of food, and the attempt to substitute 
many things that were not in any sense food, such as tomatoes, 
or other things that were only part foods, like roots or tubers, 
coarse vegetables, flour mixed with dried grass or alfalfa, and 
an excess of potatoes, the latter being deprived of its value by 
throwing the peelings away and using only the inside portion. 

Since the war these causes have mostly disappeared. Had so 
simple a diet as that which the Pilgrim Fathers lived and 
thrived upon, cornmeal, been used in place of these worthless 
or semi-worthless things, at least there would not have been any 
Spanish Influenza with its aftermath of lifelong injury to the 
health and body. Cornmeal including the germs, baked pota¬ 
toes with salt and butter or milk, and fish whenever it can be 
obtained, make a fully balanced diet for emergency, but is not 
recommended except to prevent such an epidemic as that re¬ 
ferred to above. 

INSANITY.—This malady is on the increase. This increase 
has been going steadily on for the past fifty years; but it has 
assumed much greater advance in the last twenty years than in 
all the thirty preceding. The recent war has been held respon¬ 
sible for many cases; but the best opinions seem to lean against 
this belief, in view of the fact that the increase took a decided 
jump prior to the war. There are many causes for insanity, the 
chief cause being an inherited taint. This alone controls a ma¬ 
jority of all the cases. 

Among the lesser causes is that of blood taint due to influences 
from some condition of the body. An injury to the brain from 
a blow or fall; bad teeth; infected tonsils; and toxic intestinal 
impurities have been proved to result in this disease of the 
brain and mind. These can all be remedied by proper methods. 
The inherited taint is more difficult to master ; but there are in¬ 
stances in which it has been subjugated. As all kinds of crime 
are associated with insanity, it is of public interest to study the 
two conditions together. 

The brain is the seat of thought, and thought must be normal 


214 


Complete Life Building 

if the mind is to be sane, for it controls every voluntary act of 
life. Of the fourteen elements that are required to feed the 
body, certain of them feed the brain functions; and if these are 
lacking, that organ becomes abnormal. This explains why an 
anemic person may in time become mentally unbalanced, and 
after restoring the general health become mentally sound again. 
The ancient adage, “A sound mind in a sound body” is still a 
guide to the settlement of one phase of this problem. 

It is well known that if you do not eat food that contains 
teeth making material, you will have weak and decayed teeth; 
also if you do not eat food that contains hair making material 
your hair will fall out or become thin. Likewise if you do not 
have a completely balanced diet containing material on which 
the brain activities depend, you will be weak-minded of neces¬ 
sity. A familiar case is that of somebody’s grandpa who en¬ 
joys his buckwheat cakes for breakfast, his starch foods at other 
meals, and similar things including coffee and tea, all of which 
constitute a one-sided diet; and no wonder he is dull, stupid and 
weak in his intellect. 

We do not believe in brain foods, or any special diet for the 
strengthening of the mind; all that is needed is a properly bal¬ 
anced diet such as we find in the TRUE FOODS. They con¬ 
tain all that Nature intends for feeding the faculties as well as 
the body. 

More cases of insanity in recent times are due to intestinal 
poisoning than is supposed by the layman. Nature ordains 
fourteen elements in true combinations and proportions as the 
food for human life. These combinations are not numerous, yet 
almost everybody takes daily into the system an increase of 
about three hundred percent additional elements or combina¬ 
tions ; all of which are poisons as any foreign matter is a poison 
to the body; and all of which leave their ugly influence on the 
blood before they can be fought out of the system. The brain 
is exactly what the blood makes it; and a constant flow of poi¬ 
soned blood into that organ is sure to result in erratic mental 
processes; in crime, profanity, alcoholism, and insane judgment. 
If you could attend each human life from sunrise to sunset, or 
better still from the first waking moment of the morning to the 
last conscious act of the evening, you would agree with the many 
noted alienists who say that in such a city as New York, there 


Nature’s Doctors 


215 


are not more than three thousand men and women who are 
really sane; and this ratio proves true in other cities and com¬ 
munities. 

The willingness of people to spend more than one hundred 
million dollars for tickets to football games in two short seasons 
of a few weeks each, when that sum would set up in the United 
States all the conditions demanded by an Ultimate Civilization, 
as will be seen in our description under that head, can be ex¬ 
plained only by agreeing with the experts who say that nearly 
everybody is insane enough to sacrifice health and life for the 
sake of a fleeting and empty gratification. This erratic mental 
process is universal. 

By the inevitable law of logic it can be safely predicted that 
the great masses of the people will not cross the line into sanity 
until they are endowed with the mental power to see that an 
Ultimate Civilization is to become the bulwark of health, long 
life and attendant happiness. 

In the meantime this mental malady is on the steady increase. 
Twenty years ago its yearly increase was the largest known; 
fifteen years ago that increase had an added twelve percent 
over any preceding period; ten years ago, another thirteen per¬ 
cent increase was added; five years ago still a further increase, 
and in the past year it has reached thirty percent more. At 
this rate, as was stated in a medical congress, it is only a ques¬ 
tion of time when the entire race will enter a state of irrespon¬ 
sible insanity. 

The surest method of cure is the adoption of the TRUE 
FOODS and the establishing of the conditions of Ultimate 
Civilization, which subject should be read many times. It will 
be found in an early Section of this book. 

INSOMNIA.—This is inability to sleep nights. It has three 
forms: 

Mental activity. 

Nervous activity. 

Physical activity. 

In the first form you go to bed thinking, and keep on thinking 
clear into the night, often till morning. 

In the second form you are all afire in your nerves. 

In the third form your muscles are restless, twitching and 
seeking vent for their energies all night long. This last named 


216 Complete Life Building 

trouble is due wholly to the eating of too much nitrogenous food 
after the noon meal. 

The duty of nitrogenous food is to make muscles and furnish 
the machinery of the body. Common sense tells us that such 
food is required before the day's work; never after it. There is 
no such thing as repairing muscular loss by rest, or after it 
occurs. Muscles build themselves by use, never by rest. If you 
carry your arm in a sling for a period, it will lose all its mus¬ 
cular tissue. When you lie in bed for days your muscles grow 
flabby. 

The following foods should not be eaten later than the noon 
hour if you are troubled with insomnia: Avoid all meats; all 
rich fish like salmon; all old peas and beans, all shelled beans; 
all fibrous vegetables, all vegetables cooked with meat, pork or 
fat; all new bread, rolls and biscuits cooked the same day; all 
fried cakes and other food; and everything in the Three Hour, 
Four Hour, Five Hour and Never Classes. 

No matter what the kind of insomnia you are troubled with, 
it is well to observe the following rules: 

1. The sleeping room should be cold, never above sixty-five 
degrees in winter, and as cool as possible in summer. 

2. At least one window should be opened several hours in ad¬ 
vance with all heat turned off; and the window should have a 
cloth screen to keep out the dust. If a draft can be avoided at 
night, one window at least should remain open; but if there is 
a draft, you may possibly secure indirect ventilation by open¬ 
ing a window in an adjoining room, or by the transom over your 
door. 

3. The bed clothes should be opened fully so that they may 
receive the cold air for a few hours before you retire. 

4. Until you recover from the trouble, you should retire at 
the same hour every night, whether you sleep or not. One or 
two very late hours disarrange the involuntary action of the 
brain and make it more difficult to get sleep. 

5. Take thirty minutes' walk just before going to bed; always 
out in the air when possible. Next best to this walk, is a trip in 
a rocking chair indoors near an open window; rocking enthu¬ 
siastically. Wear sufficient clothing to avoid catching cold. 

6. Bathe the body from the waist down just before retiring, 
using water as hot as you can endure; and give the upper part 


Nature’s Doctors 


217 


of the body a dry rubbing with a hot towel in winter, and a cool 
water bath in summer. Never take cold water baths, as the re¬ 
action will keep you awake. 

7. Do not wear against the skin in bed, any of the clothing 
you have worn during the day. It is better to have no under¬ 
clothing on at night; but make up for its lack by having plenty 
of bed-clothes, but not an excess. 

If you suffer from nervous activity which prevents sleep, the 
chances are ten to one that it comes from an empty stomach. 
Take some lightly nourishing food just as you get into bed, the 
same as is recommended under Headaches. The nerves of the 
brain are then deprived of their activity while the food is be¬ 
ing digested by the nerves of the stomach which are the im¬ 
pelling forces behind the gastric juices. 

Some people fail to sleep because of their mental activities. 
If there is any other person within reach of your voice, avoid 
starting a conversation. It is, of course, better to sleep alone. 
Do not engage in any discussion with another for a half hour 
before retiring, for the talking brain is always a thinking brain 
in your mental class. 

It is useless to repeat the old advice to stop thinking as soon 
as you go to bed. No one can stop thinking who is capable of 
having insomnia. This malady belongs to the elite only. But 
you can adopt a line of thinking that will put you to sleep very 
quickly after you master it. Try to recall the gentlest and 
quietest plot of a story you have read; or, better still, do as 
many persons have done, invent a very quiet plot for either a 
novel or the moving picture theatre; let it be pleasing and at¬ 
tractive. If you ever finish it, review it as often as you wish ; 
the more you review it, the more easily you will fall asleep. 

IRRITABILITY.—This is a warning symptom of a wrong 
condition in the body; just as neuralgia is another warning 
symptom of something else that is wrong and that needs atten¬ 
tion. It has been said that 999 persons in every thousand suffer 
from congestion without knowing it; and Nature seeks to give 
notice of this condition by what we call irritability. Unless 
congestion gets a hold of the membrane of the stomach and of 
the connecting membranes, no disease or malady can follow. 
This fact should be remembered every day of the year. 

The cause of congestion is material that is not needed by the 


218 


Complete Life Building 

body or the abusive manner of cooking what is needed. Fried 
foods and pastry always set up congestion. Its presence is 
never known at first except by the irritated condition of the 
nerves. 

Look at the list of foods that cause PROFANITY under that 
subject in this Section; any one of those foods is able to set up 
congestion and result in irritability, the forerunner of profanity 
and the craving for alcohol and other stimulants. Normally the 
system rejects all stimulants. One of the natural ends of the 
victim of alcoholism is insanity; and every expert knows that 
irritability is the forerunner of the most violent forms of in¬ 
sanity when it has gone unchecked to its climax. No one pre¬ 
tends to deny that delirium tremens is the final curtain of al¬ 
coholism, and it is an abject and degrading form of insanity. 
Like the spokes that radiate from the hub of a wheel, all these 
methods of wrecking human life and its hopes have their be¬ 
ginning in a congested stomach, and the cause of that trouble is 
in the things that enter the mouth on their way to the stomach; 
things that are poisons to the body. 

The man who can conquer himself is greater than he who can 
conquer or rule a city. Here is the opportunity for testing 
self control. Study yourself to ascertain whether or not you 
are irritable, whether you desire at times to use language that 
is profane or rough; if so, conquer the trouble by removing the 
cause. 

KIDNEY TROUBLES 

During the past forty years there have been victories over 
many. diseases among humanity. A large number of acute 
maladies have been mastered by science. Among these are the 
dreaded typhoid, diphtheria, and some contagious afflictions. 
Mortality has been lessened in many directions. 

But there remain, on the opposite side of the reckoning, a 
few diseases that are steadily increasing, and those of the kid¬ 
neys are in the very front rank. Troubles of this kind are 
treacherous for the reason that they come without warning; 
often when there is no time or chance to combat them. They 
have but one end,—death. * J 

If we were to set forth in technical language all the main 
points connected with kidney diseases, this part of our book 


Nature’s Doctors 


219 


would be uninteresting and probably un-read. We shall, there¬ 
fore, use very plain, everyday terms. Let us call all kidney 
troubles Bright’s Disease. Some doctors do that, while know- 
ing that the term is not correct, but that it conveys as much 
information as any other name. 

To prepare the way for understanding what is to come, let 
us in a general way use two terms for the division of foods: 

1. Some foods are muscle-making. 

2. Other foods are energy-making. 

These are also all included in the TRUE FOODS. 

It is necessary to eat some muscle-making food every day; for 
thereby we build not only the actual muscles, but the tissue of 
the flesh, and other parts of the body. 

In another chapter we see that all foods are poisons; those 
that do not kill us in the act of eating them, do in fact begin 
to kill us after we have devoured them. Digestion changes all 
food, after the nutrition has been extracted from it, into active 
and dangerous poisons. For this reason the bowels should move 
every day; to retain the locked up dangerous matter is the basis 
of nearly all impure blood. 

But the kidneys have their own duty to perform, which is to 
take care in a general way of the poisons left by the muscle¬ 
making foods after they have been digested. When the kidneys 
refuse to dispose of this class of poison, then it is thrown back 
very suddenly into the blood and may cause convulsions and 
death in a few hours. This may be known as acute Bright’s 
Disease, or as chronic if it remains and does not end fatally at 
once. 

More than fifty million people in America have chronic 
Bright’s Disease in a mild and curable form. Of this number 
five million may neglect the trouble and die in agony sooner or 
later. The others may drag along, most of them under the care 
of doctors, and keep alive for many years; probably staying on 
earth half of the time otherwise allotted them. 

There is but one basic cause for kidney diseases; and that is 
eating more of the muscle-making foods than these organs can 
dispose of. When this fact is learned and listened to, there is 
hope for all sufferers who have not yet reached the fatal stage 
of the malady. TOO MUCH MUSCLE-MAKING FOOD. 

The kidneys of a person who does not use the body physically 


220 


Complete Life Building 

very much each day, will not dispose of more than three ounces 
of muscle-making food every twenty-four hours. 

But if a person gives the body much outdoor air, much ac¬ 
tivity, yet is not a hard worker, then the kidneys will dispose 
of six ounces of this class of food. 

The hard working man, especially if out of doors to a large 
extent, may eat twelve ounces of this kind of food. 

While whole wheat, whole rice, cream, milk and butter con¬ 
tain some of the muscle-making food value, it is never possible 
to take them to excess so as to injure the kidneys. We, there¬ 
fore, omit them in this classification. 

The most common of the MUSCLE-MAKING FOODS ARE: 

1. Meat of all kinds, and in all conditions, fresh, salted, smoked 
and otherwise prepared, cooked or un-cooked. They are the 
most dangerous enemies of the kidneys, for the reason that they 
are the stored up poisons of the animals from which they are 
taken. Every ounce of meat, therefore, puts the kidneys to dou¬ 
ble tax to dispose of the poisons contained in it. 

2. Cheese. This includes all kinds of cheese made from the 
curd of milk. It is a concentrated muscle-making food, unbal¬ 
anced by the other parts of the milk. In the form of whole 
milk, it is never a danger to the kidneys. 

3. Old beans. While not containing locked up animal poisons 
like meat, beans do in fact carry a greater proportion of muscle¬ 
making food; for which reason they furnish a long stand-by for 
laborers. Pound for pound they are only half the tax on the 
kidneys that meats are, and are to be preferred; but sedentary 
persons should eat but few of them at a meal, and never after 
midday. 

4. Old peas. What is true of beans is likewise true of peas. 

5. Eggs. The yolks when boiled hard for an hour or more 
are digestible, and one or two eggs a day can be passed by the 
kidneys if the whites are not cooked. When the latter are 
coagulated even in the slightest degree, the kidneys will not pass 
them. If you are an egg eater, we advise boiling them for one 
hour or longer; some persons boil them for three hours; then 
wholly discard the whites and eat from one to three a day de¬ 
pending on your physical activity; but on the same day eat no 
more muscle-making food. 

6. Oat Meal. One dish of oat meal cooked all night, or not 


Nature’s Doctors 


221 


less than three hours in the day time, contains half the muscle¬ 
making food needed by the average person of active life; and 
in much better form. It also contains practically all the food 
elements required to build a perfect body. 

When oat meal is eaten, no meat, egg, cheese, beans or peas 
should be taken at the same meal. Wken meat is eaten, no oat 
meal, cheese, egg, peas or beans should be taken at the same 
meal. And so on through the list. Never double a muscle¬ 
making food; never eat two kinds of this food at the same meal. 
The worst barbarism is that of baked beans, pork, and brown 
bread as a repast. No wonder the old timers of Boston died 
early. No wonder they all had kidney complications while they 
lived. 

And it is no wonder that fifty million inhabitants of our fair 
land are to-day suffering from some form of kidney malady; 
mostly from incipient Bright’s Disease. 

Nature has been kind in such cases. 

She has given her victims a chance to escape death if they 
will adopt her teachings. She has given them a covering of the 
body called the SKIN, and has installed in that covering count¬ 
less millions of little engines which are able to pump out of the 
blood the poisons that the kidneys are not able to throw off. 

If you keep the pores of the skin open by one very thorough 
daily bath, you will never die of kidney disease. But the skin 
clogs itself so completely in every twenty-four hours that it 
ceases to be of service to the kidneys. 

Some college students in the hazing days varnished the skin 
of one of their fellow students; and in twenty minutes he died 
in great agony. In another college where they had not heard 
of this case, students covered one of their fellow students with 
sticking plaster; he lived for two hours; and died after great 
suffering. These cases indicate that a dirty hide may permit 
enough of its functions to take place to avoid death, but not 
enough to be of help to the kidneys. 

BLOOD PRESSURE follows the eating of too much muscle¬ 
making food; as it is one of the results of inactive kidneys. Any 
case of blood pressure can be cured in thirty days by omitting 
all muscle-making foods and giving the skin two very thorough 
baths every twenty-four hours. This is not a theory; it is a 
tested fact. It costs nothing to try it. You may ask what the 


222 Complete Life Building 

body will do for lack of muscle-making food; it will not suffer 
at all in thirty days; it has a large amount stored away or 
blood pressure would not be present. This cure has taken place 
whenever tried; and often after doctors have used every known 
remedy without success. 

Interference with the flow of the blood, as when there is 
hardening of the arteries, and similar troubles, is not of itself 
blood pressure; the channels through which this fluid passes are 
choked, but the blood itself may be normal. The same is true 
when a diseased heart will not pump the fluid easily; it cannot 
get away fast enough. The real pressure comes from throwing 
into the circulation the poisonous material that the kidneys fail 
to dispose of. 

Hardening of the arteries and of the liver can often be 
traced to the use of things that either stimulate or deaden the 
nerves. Tea and alcohol are known to all physicians as causes 
of such hardening. But the excessive use of coffee will bring 
about the same trouble. Tea even in moderation always at¬ 
tacks the arteries, as well as the valve action of the heart which 
it slows very considerably, and it is for its quieting effect that 
it is used. Most people have blind or nervous indigestion; 
hence they are nervous; they must quiet their nerves; they take 
naturally to tea; but every time they take something to quiet 
the nerves, they add something also to the ultimate paralysis 
that is the fate of the tea drinker. 

The kidneys will not pass either tea, coffee, alcohol, or stimu¬ 
lants of any kind; for which reason, when the doctor is called 
to attend the sufferer from Bright’s Disease, he first inquires 
as to these habits. In every instance he cuts off all these things, 
at the same time trying to dispose of their progeny through 
the skin by sweating. The Turkish bath has been used for 
such an end; but it destroys the vitality of the pore-engines of 
the skin. In former times, blood-letting was the chief method 
of relieving the victim, no matter what ailed him. It certainly 
reduced blood pressure by lessening the quantity of that fluid 
in the veins; but it did not extract the urea from the blood 
that remained. It took good and bad, and left good and bad 

There are several kinds of kidney diseases, but they all dis" 
appear when the TRUE POODS are adopted; and they leave a 


Nature’s Doctors 


223 


clean sheet to re-begin life on. So their names have no value 
in an age of real civilization. 

THE LIVER 

The intestinal tract, aided by the kidneys, separates the bad 
food from the good, leaving the latter in the body, and ejecting 
the former. The LIVER is the most responsible organ of the 
body in this transaction. It controls the whole tract, and is 
master and governor of the kidneys as well. 

But the refuse food and other material that is separated by 
the intestines and kidneys, is merely a part of the food that has 
been taken into the stomach. More important than this, is the 
ejection of the DEAD CELLS that are accumulating every 
minute of life in the blood and tissue. This is the break-down 
of the tissue, due to the process of living, of thinking and of 
action. This break-down is a source of greater danger than the 
refuse parts of the foods in the intestinal tract. Both must be 
thrown out as soon as possible. The refuse is purged out by 
pills and physics; hence the name of physicians who aid in this 
elimination. Physics however only get rid of refuse parts of 
the food, and never reach the broken-down cells and tissue in 
the blood; but in the olden times, leeches and cutting, and cup¬ 
ping were used to let out some of the blood; and by this method 
the break-down of the cells and tissue was drawn off; but the 
process weakened the nerves and the whole body. 

They never thought then that the LIVER was given that 
work to do, and that it does it perfectly when it is in health. 

Thus the LIVER has two of the greatest duties to perform in 
the whole scheme of life: 

It has charge of the whole intestinal tract and kidneys, and 
thereby directs and controls the escape of the refuse food- 
material that passes beyond the stomach. 

It has charge of the whole process of driving out of the body 
the millions and billions of dead cells that pile up in the system 
every minute of life, day and night. 

Only a HEALTHY LIVER can perform this double duty. 

WHAT TO EAT TO CURE LIVER TROUBLES.—You can¬ 
not go wrong if you adopt as a diet until in perfect health, 
only the TRUE FOODS which are listed and described in this 


224 


Complete Life Building 

part of the book. They are known as FRIENDS of the liver; 
while the list of foods under PROFANITY in this Section are 
known as ENEMIES of that organ. 

After eating any meal if you can spare a half hour out of 
doors, try slow walking with long steps, while exhaling all the 
air from the lungs, following each complete exhalation with a 
slow and deep inhalation. This practice is especially beneficial 
to the liver. 

After retiring at night, if the liver seems sluggish, devote 
about thirty minutes to kneading it with the hands by using 
the tips of the fingers in and out under the lower right rib. 

LOCKJAW.—Tetanus or lockjaw is much more common than 
is supposed. It is due to specific germs that are imbedded un¬ 
der the skin, especially the tough hide of the palms of the hands 
and the soles of the feet. They are introduced by some foreign 
substance attending a wound; as when a nail enters the foot or 
hand, or shot or parts of a discharge from a gun or from fire¬ 
works carries infection into the blood. 

The danger follows when the skin begins to heal and cover 
the germs. 

Very soon, and without warning, the whole body is involved 
and death ensues with great agony. 

Oxygen in fresh air is the only natural remedy. 

This is secured by keeping the wound open all the time, and 
compelling it to bleed freely by pressure around it. At the 
same time there should be some powerful antiseptic introduced. 
If a doctor is not within reach, use turpentine on the fresh sur¬ 
face and force it into the wound after opening it and pressing 
the blood out. 

MALARIA.—This is a mosquito disease. Destroy these pests 
and chills and fever, or malaria, will disappear. Screen every 
door and window of the house; see that all pails, tubs and other 
receptacles out of doors are empty of water in warm weather; 
and put petroleum oil on the ponds, brooks, and other places 
where water stands. 

NEURALGIA.—This is Nature’s Danger Signal that all is 
not well with you. It is really a depletion of the nervous fluid, 
just as the battery of an automobile may be too weak to run 
the engine. If the lights grow dim in your house, you ascer¬ 
tain the cause. When your nervous fluid is at low ebb, the 


Nature’s Doctors 225 

signal is given by severe pains. The following are the leading 
causes of neuralgia: 

Indigestion. This over-taxes the vitality and you suffer in 
consequence. The pain generally conies up the spinal column 
and along the back of the neck to the back and top of the head. 

The foods of the NEVER CLASS always cause neuralgia, as 
do most of those in the Fourth and Fifth Classes. When the 
vitality wears itself out trying to digest things that are never 
intended for the human body, there must follow some penalty. 

Lack of Sleep.—If you lose sleep at night you will suffer from 
neuralgia. It is better to sleep a few minutes by day. We 
have known of many cases of cure by this method. 

Insufficient Nourishment.—This leads to some of the most dis¬ 
tressing forms of neuralgia. Food may be abundant, but lack¬ 
ing in nutrition, as in the case of tomato soup of which you may 
eat in vast quantities and yet be driven wild with neuralgia, as 
there is no food value in that kind of food. Many soups are 
likewise deficient, as are all the cube and other beef extracts on 
the market. All canned soups are without nutrition. Tea, 
coffee and beef extract bought in cans constitute, with toast, 
much of the food of certain people who are fearfully neuralgic. 
Recently we saw six clerks, all women, eating at a restaurant; 
and their full meal consisted of puree of tomato, coffee, so-called 
graham crackers, and baked apples, of which by agreement all 
partook, as it was the custom of each to take the same food that 
the others took at the same meal. By inquiry we learned that 
every one of them was subject to severe neuralgic headaches. 
Out of a dozen lists of meals published by the papers as ideal 
for people to adopt, not one meal in any list contained enough 
proper food to keep the vitality high and prevent neuralgia. 

Defective Eyesight.—If the eyes do not focus they will cause 
pains that can be remedied only by the use of glasses. 

Toothache, boils and pains in general. These all sap the vi¬ 
tality and cause neuralgia. Remove the cause. 

Day sleep, in addition to night sleep, and nourishing food, 
will overcome these troubles unless some specific cause exists, 
such as some of those mentioned above. Fruits that are sour, 
or foods that contain sharp acid, such as apples, strawberries, 
cranberries, gooseberries, currants, rhubarb and the like, will 
cause neuralgia in some persons and rheumatism in others. A 


226 Complete Life Building 

man of sound sense and a bank president at the same time 
made a chart of his head on paper, and on it drew a complex 
system of lines running in all directions, and stated that these 
lines represented the neuralgic pains that he had suffered from 
for over twenty years. We paid close attention to his case and 
found that he was fond of hard, sour apples, of which he ate 
freely during the day and before retiring at night. Nothing 
would convince him that these were the cause of his twenty 
years of martyrdom; he was just old enough to be unable to 
accept an idea that did not suit his fancy. One day the neural¬ 
gia made a leap at his heart, and his physician told him that he 
must never again eat another apple. He obeyed and soon was 
wholly free from the trouble. 

NEURASTHENIA.—The popular name of this malady is 
nervous prostration. It is the half-sleep disease; that is a per¬ 
son who is asleep is only half asleep in fact. For this reason 
all specialists in this trouble call it “the city disease.” The rea¬ 
son for this name is easily seen; when the body and nerves are 
tired out and the time comes for going to bed and seeking rest 
by the usual slumber, if it is in any city where night noises oc¬ 
cur, the mind is sufficiently unconscious to give the impression 
of sound sleep; while in fact every city noise jars on the brain 
and half awakes the sleeper. 

REPAIR DOES NOT ATTEND HALF SLEEP. 

Few persons know that growth takes place only during deep 
slumber. It cannot take place during any partial slumber. 
Growth consists of two processes; the first is that of building the 
body in whole or in part. The second form of growth is the 
building of any part of the body that is out of repair; that is, 
renewing waste. No repair takes place during half sleep. 

The parts of the body that need repairing, or renewal, are the 
brain, the nerve centers, the nerve forces, the nerves themselves, 
all the tissue, the blood, the organs and the faculties. All these 
are used daily and are subject to constant loss and waste; and 
MUST BE REPAIRED DURING SOUND SLUMBER. 

There may be cases of neurasthenia that originated in the 
quietude of country life; but we have never seen such a case, 
and have never heard of one, and have never known a physician 
who has heard of one. Where sleep is sound, and of sufficient 
length to carry on repair and growth this malady seems to be 


Nature’s Doctors 


227 


impossible. When a person says he needs but little sleep nights, 
let him have his way; he is not subject to nerve exhaustion. 
When a person says he sleeps so well in the city that his nerves 
are never run down, the fact is that he has vitality stored away 
against any such damage. But when he says he sleeps soundly 
in the city, he does not tell the truth, although he may honestly 
think he does. Many tests have been made of sleeping persons 
where city noises jar on the unconscious brain, and such noises 
cause fitful starts to the sleepers, which indicates that they are 
only half asleep, although wholly unconscious. 

The fact stands out clearly that growth and repair cannot oc¬ 
cur except during sound and complete sleep. This is a law of 
life itself. 

The best advice we can give to start on in this malady, is to 
have the patient lie down at once after each meal; after break¬ 
fast, after the noon meal, and after the evening meal; lie down 
for a few minutes; five or ten or more; try to sleep; follow the 
treatment in this Section for Insomnia at those times; and even¬ 
tually it will be possible to snatch a brief period of slumber dur¬ 
ing the day. It is best right after eating because digestion, 
assimilation and repair are most beneficial then. This simple 
remedy strikes at the heart of the trouble. Then at night, even 
if the usual period of slumber is broken into, spend at least 
eight or nine hours in bed trying to sleep. 

Remember that the cause of this malady is the wasting of the 
body by the use of it daily, without proper repair taking place. 

Fresh air, gentle and never hard physical efforts, no use of 
the mind except in light reading, very little conversation, and 
the TRUE FOODS as the diet, will aid the new habits of day 
sleep to establish the process of repair and growth. Stop the 
excess waste. Physical effort causes waste; so does brain work, 
talking much, and improper food. 

Do not take as your guide the habits of people who are able 
to get along with very little sleep; some are full of vitality and 
can take long chances with Nature without immediate penalty. 
We are seeking to help those whose nervous powers have been 
depleted by some form of waste or excess, or overwork of mind 
or body, and who need special care and attention in order to 
find good health again. 

NEURITIS.—This is an exceedingly painful and dangerous 


228 


Complete Life Building 

condition. It differs from neurasthenia in that the latter is the 
exhaustion of the nerve centers controlling muscles, brain, organs 
and functions; while neuritis is the injury to the nerve lines and 
their terminals. You know how unpleasant it is to have the end 
of a nerve exposed in a tooth; in this malady there are many 
thousands of ends exposed, or subject to irritation from the 
adjacent tissue. It is not always that repair can take place. 
When telegraph wires are rusted or worn to pieces, you can put 
in new ones; but no surgeon has yet been able to insert new nerve 
lines in a human being to any extent. 

But a slight injury to the nerves can be remedied by changing 
the diet and using only the TRUE FOODS of this book. 

This is an age of increasing neuritis. 

It is one of the BIG THREE that medical science cannot com¬ 
bat. Practically all other diseases have been more or less treated 
with success; but the BIG THREE go increasing all the time: 
Cancer, Insanity and Neuritis. 

This is also a poison age. The bread that is the staff of life 
should be free from adulteration, but white flour is bleached by 
chemicals that cause destruction to the nerves. Alum in the high¬ 
est priced baking powders causes the same malady. Preserva¬ 
tives in most foods are likewise guilty of this injury to life and 
health. Absolute safety can never be found until we reach the 
age of Ultimate Civilization; to which subject you are referred 
by looking it up in the Index of this book. 

PARALYSIS, INFANTILE.—We do not believe that there 
has ever occurred a case of this malady when the foods have been 
proper or even half proper. One woman, the mother of three 
boys, believed that beer was a wholesome drink for her offspring 
at a tender age, and all three were victims of infantile paralysis. 
Another mother fed her children with fried potatoes, Saratoga 
chips, corn flakes, crisps and similar food and two of the boys 
were attacked by this malady. 

PARALYSIS.—It has been seen that the lungs are paralyzed 
in what is known as the Spanish Influenza just referred to. 
The result is that the victim suffocates. In acute indigestion, 
the carbonic acid gas from the stomach acts as an enemy to the 
action of the heart, and that organ stops because it is paralyzed. 
The patient, generally at the dinner table, falls forward dead. 


Nature’s Doctors 229 

In the former case the cause is a germ poison; in the latter one, 
it is a chemical poison. 

The nerves supply the life of every part of the body, even of 
the bones and skin, as well as the brain, organs and muscles. 
The man whose blood has been tainted by venereal disease sooner 
or later dies from paralysis of the brain, or paresis; or he may 
suffer from locomotor ataxia, which is a partial paralysis of the 
ganglia that supply life to the limbs. 

If you are not to be included in any of the foregoing causes, 
then if you are to be paralyzed, the chances are a thousand to 
one that the cause will originate in some kind of patent medi¬ 
cines or from the use of TEA. Constipation must be relieved; 
and instead of ending it by the natural method stated in this 
book, you take pills. Remember that pills and paralysis are 
cause and effect. Laxatives and purgatives are intended to 
make the bowels active; they do their work up to a certain limit, 
after which the bowels are unable to respond. What is known 
as peristalsis or natural motion of the intestines, ceases, because 
the medicines and pills have paralyzed the nerves of the bowels. 
Thus you have another form of this malady. 

Ninety percent of all paralytics have been TEA DRINKERS. 

Please make a note of the following fact: 

There is not a pill, or medicine on sale to-day that is not an 
agent of ultimate paralysis! 

The most dangerous of all these influences are the widely ad¬ 
vertised patent medicines and drugs. Not one of them is natural 
to the life of the body; all are foreign enemies; and their goal 
is paralysis. 

On every such bottle, and on every pill box, write in red ink 
the word: “Paralysis.” Tea-drinking causes semi-paralysis 
of the nerve centers, and in time of the nerves themselves. 

Shocks caused by cold water and air produce paralysis. 

A man opened a car window to cool off his un-bathed body 
after a hard run to the station; a man sitting behind him re¬ 
ceived ninety percent of the cold air draft, as is always the 
case, for the air rushed backwards with the advancing motion 
of the train. The man behind suddenly became helpless and 
was taken from the train a paralytic. 

A small boy traveling in the cars with his mother, opened the 
window and put his head out a few inches; suddenly he found 


230 


Complete Life Building 

the side of his face where the cold air struck it, paralyzed. It 
has never to this day become normal. It is twisted out of 
shape. We have records of over one hundred cases of sudden 
paralysis attending the opening of car windows to let in the 
cold air. 

Other cases follow the same principle. Thus a man who took 
a cold shower bath fell helpless into the tub. Another man who 
was overheated, sat under a ceiling electric fan in hot weather; 
and for the past eighteen months has lain on his bed a total 
wreck from this disease. A woman in a theatre w;ho sat under 
an electric fan was paralyzed; as was another woman in a 
restaurant from the same cause. We have just received a report 
of a man whose shoulder and right side have been paralyzed 
from sitting in a draft at an open window in his home; the 
very moment the draft struck him he collapsed. 

PARESIS.—The popular but not correct name of this malady 
is softening of the brain. It is in fact the paralysis of some 
part of that organ. Its origin in a small percentage of cases 
is due to excessive mental strain, or emotional excess; but in a 
greater percentage it is due to alcohol, and still greater to sexual 
excesses. It is common more among males than females; and 
occurs more frequently between the ages of thirty-five and fifty- 
five; almost always ending in death. 

Whether the above influences are able to originate the dis¬ 
ease or only serve to develop it from a latent state, is not fully 
known; but facts show clearly that about eighty-three percent 
of all cases of paresis have been preceded by the taint of 
syphilis; and it is fair to assume that all such cases may have 
the same taint, but in more dormant form, requiring strain or 
excess to make it active. 

PILES.—These are caused by the liver, but there are causes 
that precede liver trouble. Thus thousands of people have piles 
only during the strawberry season; this is due to an acid poison 
that follows through the liver into the intestines. On the other 
hand there are certain kinds of pills used as a laxative that re¬ 
sult in piles while giving only temporary relief from constipa¬ 
tion. Some medicines do the same thing. The process is very 
easy to understand. Piles are attended by the protruding of 
the end of the alimentary canal. When in health it is tense 
and vigorous; when paralyzed in part by drugs or acids in 


Nature’s Doctors 231 

fruits, it ceases to hold its tense nature and becomes flabby, so 
that it cannot hold itself in place. 

Bleeding piles as well as protruding piles may be overcome 
by holding a piece of ice as large as a pullet’s egg, against the 
place. Wrap the ice in cloth, and have several thicknesses of 
cloth on the outside to assist in keeping it against the intestine. 
This method has prevented many cases from being taken to the 
hospital where an operation had been ordered by doctors. 

PNEUMONIA.—Under the law of probabilities, and in view 
of the rapidly increasing spread of this malady, the chances are 
that you will end your days in this way; although cancer, 
typhoid, tuberculosis, acute indigestion or organic disease may 
be responsible for your taking off. 

Pneumonia is now surprising the world by its increase from 
year to year. Commissions that are appointed to study the 
cause, place the blame on the weather and the various habits of 
the people; and wholly overlook the FIRST GREAT CAUSE 
of pneumonia; which is CONGESTION OF THE STOMACH. 

But, you say, YOU never have congestion of the stomach. 

Do not deceive yourself. It is almost wholly painless; and 
can be discovered only in its results, unless you will take the 
trouble to drink a cup of hot water, very hot, on an empty 
stomach each morning. This will discover your congestion, and 
settle the question. 

Because there are THREE CAUSES for pneumonia, people, 
and even expert doctors, shut their eyes to the one GREAT 
FIRST CAUSE, and look only to one of the minor causes: 

2nd.—Exposure to dampness or chilling winds. 

3rd.—Germs, or bacteria. 

ALL THREE CAUSES must combine. But if you are free 
from congestion of the stomach, and expose yourself to the 
GERMS of pneumonia, they will be destroyed as fast as they 
attack you. Yet, if you are free from congestion of the stomach, 
and your vitality is lowered by exposure to dampness and chill¬ 
ing winds, you WILL NOT HAVE PNEUMONIA. You may 
be stricken with paralysis as the result of reduced vitality; but 
pneumonia will not attack you. 

There never was a case of pneumonia that did not originate 
in an abuse of the stomach; and there will never be a case of 
pneumonia that does not so originate. Not long ago we saw 


232 Complete Life Building 

children eating their breakfast of Saratoga chips, crisp break¬ 
fast food, and similar pain-causing non-food material; and we 
saw other children eating plain, wholesome food, but BOLTING 
it down without taking time to either chew it or salivate it in 
the mouth; and in these groups of children, pneumonia reaped 
its fearful harvest; while other children, eating only proper food 
in a careful manner, wholly escaped congestion of the stomach 
and pneumonia. 

PROFANITY is a universal disease of the nerves, involving 
the brain, the mind and the vital centers. It is known as the 
“CONGESTION MALADY .’ 9 

It is of two classes: 

1. Habit. 

2. The shrieking of the nerves suffering from blind conges¬ 
tion and the more intense forms of irritability due to indigestion. 

When it is a habit, it is a parrot-like repetition of what has 
been uttered by others. Almost any group of boys whose par¬ 
ents are profane may be heard speaking unconsciously the words 
of the most abhorrent oaths. This is a common event in city 
and town. With this class of cases we have nothing to do. It 
serves to furnish the complete vocabulary for those who have 
dire need of bad words to relieve their feelings and torment. 

THE PROFANITY DIET.—This consists of the fol¬ 
lowing: Bacon, cheese, pork, lard, sausage, doughnuts, 
crullers, pastry, fried ham, fried meats of any kind, 
fried fish, fried potatoes, crisps, chips, new bread, corn 
flakes, fried egg plant, fried eggs, Saratoga potatoes, 
tea, coffee, baked beans, old beans, old peas, sweet pota¬ 
toes, yams, marmalade, fried oysters, mincemeat, clams, 
lobster, suet, goose, turnips, cabbage, radishes, cran¬ 
berries, cucumbers, peppers, pickles, vinegar, catsup, 
peanuts, peanut butter, spices, dried currants, fruit cake, 
gelatine, coconut, pickled meats, salted meats, smoked 
meats, smoked fish, pickled fish, old or fibrous vege¬ 
tables and crisp surfaces of meats or other food, the 
chocolate in common use, candies not home made, 
gravies, dressings, sauces, fancy breads, cakes, oily nuts, 
and in fact all nuts except almonds and chestnuts. 


Nature’s Doctors 


233 


The foregoing PROFANITY DIET contains almost nothing 
that is real food, yet includes the chief articles of the tables in 
most homes. More than this, each article is charged with its 
share of the profanity of the world. 

To understand this it is necessary to grasp the meaning of 
congestion and you are advised to turn to the Index in this 
book and find the page on which that trouble is discussed. Next 
you must know what is meant by blind congestion. It is a 
pain that does not reach the conscious mind but that reaches 
the nerves. You have had blind congestion from the day you 
were weaned down to the minute when you are reading this 
statement. You do not know it, nor feel it, for if you did it 
would not be blind congestion. Your nerves feel it. A vague 
unrest, a desire for a change, a discontent with time and con¬ 
ditions, an irritable nature requiring only some trivial cause 
to set it off, a quick temper especially when alone, a readiness 
to use the severest words and terms that have thus far crept 
into your vocabulary, picking up words that you have heard 
others use when upset or irritated and speaking them aloud as 
an invective against any innocent object that may happen to 
cross your purposes or be in your way, finally swearing or 
speaking in foul terms outright on any provocation: this is 
congestion; it is a blind pain due to lesion of the membranes 
following the PROFANITY DIET or some part of it. 

This diet is answerable for many sins; for alcoholism, for 
irritability that leads to insanity, and through insanity to crime, 
and for the most common of all mental and nervous diseases, 
the most degraded of all, profanity. 

RABIES; or Hydrophobia.—This, the most terrible of all 
maladies, is due to the poison of a specific germ that has been 
transmitted by some animal to the system of a human being. 
As cats, wolves and other animals suffer from it, there is no 
reason why it should be charged against the dog except that he 
is the most convenient carrier of the infection. 

A typical case is the following: A very fine, gentle, high¬ 
bred pet dog was asleep on the piazza at the front of the resi¬ 
dence of a well-to-do family in which there were six children. 
A stray dog ran up the steps of the piazza and snapped only 
once at the pet; in fact it was not supposed that he bit him; 
but he did. In the course of time the pet dog snapped at all the 


234 Complete Life Building 

children; four of them died in convulsions from rabies; while 
the lives of the other two were saved by the pasteur treatment, 
which had failed with the first four. 

It is said that the total number of cases of this kind is not 
great; yet the records of one institute show that they treat eight 
thousand cases a year on an average. 

There are so many dog owners in the land, and public opin¬ 
ion is so strongly fixed in favor of dogs running at large, that 
it is impossible to teach prevention; therefore, if your child is 
bitten by your own pet dog after it has been bitten by a stray 
dog running through town, the only thing to do is to hurry your 
child to some institute for cure. 

RHEUMATISM.—As used by people in general the term 
rheumatism embraces many different kinds of affliction, that 
apparently are all along the same line. Neuralgia is often con¬ 
founded with this malady. It is useless to split hairs in defin¬ 
ing the results of a group of causes all of which may be brought 
to an end by proper eating, or other preventive measures. 

It is a poison disease. 

Even so small a thing as an unhealthy tonsil may set up 
enough poison in the system to establish chronic rheumatic con¬ 
ditions. If you suspect that as a cause, let your doctor inspect 
your tonsils; and if they are diseased, have them cut out. There 
is no danger in the operation. 

Poison from decayed teeth has been known to set up this 
malady. 

But ninety-nine cases out of every hundred are due solely to 
a wrong diet. There are fourteen elements required by the 
human body to sustain its life, every one of which must be 
taken in constantly. When some of these are lacking, neuralgia 
follows; the absence of a certain quantity of bone material re¬ 
sults in the rickets. 

On the other hand if you eat fifteen elements instead of the 
fourteen, you may have some form of rheumatism. The fact 
is that all rheumatic people, with rare exceptions, are eating, 
not fourteen or fifteen, but a daily average of more than forty 
elements, or twenty-six more than the body requires or can take 
care of. 

As an example, take oxalic acid; it is not one of the fourteen 
elements; it is not needed by the body; on the other hand it is 


Nature’s Doctors 


235 


a direct poison to the blood, to the nerves and to the flesh, bones 
and muscles. If you have a piece of cloth that has been stained 
by iron rust, a few drops of oxalic acid in water, will remove 
the stains. So will the juice of a tomato, which contains a large 
proportion of this dangerous acid. Yet people eat tomatoes 
fresh and canned, all the year round. A person whose system 
is strong enough to resist oxalic acid, may eat tomatoes with no 
fear of rheumatism, but neuralgia may follow, or headaches, 
because of lack of nutrition. During the war, some health offi¬ 
cials, desiring to please the Government by saving real food, 
strongly advised the nation to eat tomatoes, as well as many 
other things that depleted the* vitality and lessened the produc¬ 
tive power of the workers in factories and on farms. Tomatoes 
have no food value, but are a distinct poison. 

Apples have not only caused neuralgia by their lack of food 
value, but have set in motion countless thousands of cases of 
rheumatism. We know whereof we speak; we are not guess¬ 
ing at these things. We have investigated more cases of this 
malady than any other organization, and we have more actual 
experiences as guides than any other source of information. 
And we say this: 

Where you find the man or woman who is suffering from 
rheumatism, if you can get at the whole truth, you will in prac¬ 
tically every instance, be able to trace it to apples, tomatoes, 
pie plant, strawberries, gooseberries, cranberries or some other 
acid poison. England is the great nation of rheumatics and 
gooseberry tart is the national flower of that country. Near 
the cranberry bogs in this land some families indulge in cran¬ 
berries three times a day, in sauce, or jellies, or other form; 
and, during the season, nearly every member of every one of 
these families is a rheumatic. We know of countless cases 
where, during the tomato season, rheumatism runs riot. Only 
a few weeks ago a woman had both feet bandaged in cloths; 
they were swollen with this disease; she asked why; we ascer¬ 
tained that she lived largely on tomatoes; she said she was 
subject to this malady during July, August and September of 
every year; now she was willing to let tomatoes alone; which 
she did; and very soon the inflamed feet were of normal size, 
and she got well. There are endless numbers of such cases. 

It is claimed that damp weather, or chilling winds, cause rheu- 


236 Complete Life Building 

matism. They make it felt but do not cause it. The condition 
must be in the blood before dampness or cold can act upon it. 
Gasoline does not build the automobile; it only sets it going 
when ignited. 

STOMACH TROUBLES.—Almost every man or woman, who 
does not live up to the doctrines of the Ralston Health Club, 
has some form of stomach trouble. The cure is embraced in 
the general work of this book, and requires the mastery of the 
principles set forth herein. 

It is in the stomach that the first fires of sickness have their 
origin; that organ becomes congested or sore. It is said that 
practically every stomach that has been examined in autopsies 
has shown this congested or sore condition. The inflammation 
slowly, steadily spreads in all directions; to the liver, to the kid¬ 
neys, to the abdominal contents, to the heart, to the lungs, and 
eventually up the passages to the throat; and wherever it goes 
the functions become abnormal. Various kinds of catarrh follow. 

The stomach becomes catarrhal. 

It requires three things to make catarrh. 

First, there must be an inflamed mucous membrane. 

Second, there must be a changed condition of the mucus. 

Third, the germs that are waiting everywhere to get their 
food, are always looking for diseased mucus on a diseased mem¬ 
brane. The stomach is a membrane; inflammation produces a 
diseased mucus; the germs do the rest in turning that mucus into 
catarrh. 

When the congestion or soreness of the stomach has climbed 
all the way up to the throat, this combination again occurs; 
and it spreads from there to the nose. Thus you have bron¬ 
chitis, laryngitis, pharyngitis and nasal catarrh; all originating 
from gastritis, or catarrh of the stomach. Then this “itis” 
business travels to the liver and to the kidneys, with more 
names attached to its ravages. 

You would not believe that the quickest cure of nose catarrh 
is secured by making the stomach normal and healthy; but such 
is the provable fact. 

From the abuse of this organ by omitting the TRUE FOODS 
in favor of the false, come the great train of maladies that 
weigh down upon the human race; comes the need of doctors 
by the hundreds of thousands; comes the need of hospitals for 


Nature’s Doctors 


237 


operations; the need of countless tons of drugs and medicines 
that leave the drug factories every week day of the year; and 
the los^ of time, the billions of dollars of actual money cost 
annually, and untold and unending misery. 

The time will come when sickness will be regarded as a crime 
against Nature because it is to be seen very clearly in its real 
light of abuse of the blessings of Nature. 

SYPHILIS 

This brings us to the unpleasant part of our work; the dis¬ 
cussion of what is undoubtedly the most horrible and most 
filthy of all human diseases. 

We would omit it if it were not for the fact that a large train 
of maladies have their origin in this disease. 

When we stop to think of the many afflictions that can be 
traced to this cause, we realize how important it is to under¬ 
stand its nature so that prevention may be taught where cure 
is hopeless. Take any one of fifty known modern diseases, 
paresis for example, or any other, and study its relation to 
syphilis, and you will understand the sway which this fearful 
scourge has on mankind to-day. Paresis is paralysis of the 
brain, and its victims are taken out of the world long before 
their life should end; and this malady can be directly traced 
to syphilis in eighty-three cases out of every one hundred; with 
probably the other seventeen influenced by the trouble. Spe¬ 
cialists in infantile paralysis assert that this affliction is charged 
to that cause; but it probably requires not only such origin but 
a wicked diet for children to account for it; in other words, 
both syphilis and a bad diet combine to produce infantile 
paralysis. Locomotor-ataxia is undoubtedly due to inherited 
syphilis; so is epilepsy which seems to be on the increase, as 
there are over half a million patients in this country suffering 
from that malady. Had there never been any syphilis there 
never would have been any epilepsy, nor locomotor-ataxia, nor 
paresis in all probability. 

Yet these troubles are but the beginning of the train that 
follows this one horror. A medical congress declared that this 
scourge alone stood responsible for ninety-eight percent of all 
inherited diseases. It is a terrible arraignment. What is more 


238 


Complete Life Building 

feared than cancer? Yet if there had never been any syphilis 
there would never have been any cancer. The latter comes 
both directly and remotely from the former. 

This most horrible and filthy venereal disease arises from 
direct contamination with a person who is suffering from it in 
an early stage; or else is inherited from one who had it and 
who transmitted it at birth; the father or mother being the 
victims; or else it came from a grandparent through a parent, 
or still further back, as the iniquities of the fathers are visited 
upon the children of the third and the fourth generations. 
Locomotor-ataxia, paresis and epilepsy generally come from 
one generation back; cancer from the second, third or fourth 
generation back. Ulcers, tumors, skin diseases and similar 
troubles are all due to syphilitic blood inherited from parent 
or grandparent. 

You can see now why we are compelled to discuss this 
malady; to omit it would be to omit the discussion of many 
diseases. 

Nature is keen to protect honorable marriage in order that 
she can perpetuate the race through family ties and tender 
care which would be sadly lacking if children were brought 
into the world to be neglected by irresponsible parentage. 
Nature is not only keen to thus protect the race, but she is 
alert to all dishonorable alliances between the sexes. History 
shows that as far back as anything is known of humanity, a 
very disagreeable venereal disease was made the penalty for 
false associations; yet this was the milder malady. It is bad 
enough, and often spells ruin for mind and body. But man 
did not heed the lesson and ignored the warning taught by 
the penalty. Then Nature showed him that she meant to punish 
him in earnest ; and she did it by a penalty that has no equal 
in horror, degradation, suffering, shame, and manner of death. 

It eats the blood by slow degrees; it bursts out on the body in 
cancerous sores; it rots away the soft bones; the nose cartilage 
decays under the skin; the larynx suffers likewise in the throat; 
and the whole being is submerged in a sea of semi-ulcerous 
affliction. 

This is the direct stage. It takes time to develop these re¬ 
sults, and while they are in process the victim marries and off¬ 
spring are born. 


Nature’s Doctors 


239 


The danger to the world is not from the direct stage; but 
from the offspring, and the children and grandchildren of the 
latter. The malady in the direct stage was an epidemic 
throughout all Europe in the fifteenth century, chiefly between 
the years 1450 and 1500; it is claimed that all the children born 
in that period and for another half century following, were 
diseased. But in the sixteenth century the use of mercury had 
reduced the first awful results in large degree without lessen¬ 
ing the inherited taint. 

It is this taint that has come down in the blood that brings 
so many diseases to the race to-day. In six generations it runs 
its course except that it leaves its cancerous danger in ever 
lessening degree, but still to be feared. 

A man who has led a clean life, whose parents both led clean 
lives, and whose grandparents all led clean lives, and whose 
great-grandparents all led clean lives, that is free from the 
direct stage, is sure to be free from inherited taint, and would 
not fall victim to cancer if a more remote taint existed, not 
even if he used tobacco; but history shows that such a man 
could not be induced to use tobacco. In other words where 
the generations number four, all having lived clean lives, there 
would be a complete hatred for tobacco in this generation. 
Hence cancer could not be possible. 

There are many specialists who have studied this disease 
both from the medical standpoint and for governments; and 
they agree that ninety-five percent of all men and women pos¬ 
sess the inherited taint of syphilis; this would seem reasonable 
when we consider the fact that one hundred percent suffered 
at one time from the direct stage. Of the ninety-five percent 
of the population so afflicted now, less than thirty-five percent 
are fit to marry; they are either not leading clean lives, or else 
are not descended from parents or grandparents who have led 
clean lives. As long as the laws permit promiscuous marriages, 
so long will we have insanity, cancer, paralysis, epilepsy, loco¬ 
motor-ataxia, ulcers, and foul blood bringing children into the 
world. 

Over sixty percent of men and women are unfit to marry, 
because they possess this inherited cancerous, ulcerous, filthy 
taint. Even if they are leading clean lives, they are paying the 
penalty for others who did not. 


240 


Complete Life Building 

Nature has invented this cruel and awful scourge as punish¬ 
ment for the sins of the past; and, in her great genius, she has 
invented a signal to all the world that such a taint is being 
carried in the blood of the victim. 

If you rub tobacco against a scratch or wound on a person 
whose parent had syphilis in the direct stage, even if cured of 
it, you will without doubt develop cancer at that scratch or 
wound. If you bruise the breast of a woman who lives in a 
house where she inhales tobacco smoke, although she herself 
may never smoke, if one of her grandparents had syphilis in 
the direct stage, this woman will develop cancer of the breast 
and die of it: A wound or bruise becomes the exciting influ¬ 
ence ; tobacco leaf or smoke is the poison, and inherited syphilis 
taint is the basic cause of cancer. 

Specialists in the study and treatment of syphilis divided the 
best civilization of to-day into two classes : thirty-five percent 
may be fit to marry and bring children into the world free of 
this taint; the other sixty-five percent are unfit to marry, as 
they possess the taint of this filthy disease in too great a de¬ 
gree to become parents. It is this unfit class that carry broad¬ 
cast the signal of the taint in the fact that they are slaves to 
the intensive form of smoking, the cigarette habit. A person 
who is content with a pipe or cigar smokes deliberately; he has 
no craving for the intensive form, cigarettes. 

But the man or woman who is slave to the habit of intensive 
smoking, the use of cigarettes, is the son or grandson, the 
daughter or granddaughter, of one who had syphilis in its 
direct stage with all the cancerous and ulcerous tendencies. 
Such a person is unfit to marry. 

Blood analysis is so perfected at the present time that not 
only can this taint be detected, but the exact percentage of its 
presence can be ascertained to a certainty. One of the ablest 
physicians we have ever known, and a personal friend, said to 
us: “I am about to marry if I ought to ally myself with a wife. 
But before I take the step I shall submit to a test for syphilitic 
taint.” On a subsequent date he told us: “The test has been 
made, and I am proud of the result. I am all right. Not even 
one percent trace of the taint was found.” This means much 
more than is apparent on its face. It should be an example of a 
universal practice, to safeguard the offspring of the future. 


Nature’s Doctors 


241 


We asked him, 4 ‘Suppose the test had shown taint; would you 
have married V 9 And he said, “The rule of guidance should 
be this: if the health or faculties of children to be born would 
be affected by a certain percentage of taint, say more than 
twenty percent, then it would have been wrong for me to have 
married. ’ ’ 

Yet it is a well known fact to doctors that cigarette smokers 
possess more than fifty percent of syphilitic taint and blood 
poison; most of them exceeding even sixty percent of this malig¬ 
nant inheritance. Here is a typical report: A leading specialist 
in the treatment of this disease said, “I made tests in one 
month of 168 men and women. Of this number, 139 were 
tainted with a very high percentage of the disease and were 
unfit to marry or associate with the opposite sex; and of this 
group of 139 so afflicted, every one was a slave to the cigarette 
habit. The remaining twenty-nine were not only free from 
the taint in serious form, but every one of them was free from 
the cigarette habit; yet of the latter number, seven smoked 
cigars or pipes/ ’ 

Another expert said, “I have met thousands of patients, 
many of them among the social and wealthy classes, and I have 
never seen a man or woman who smoked cigarettes who was 
not tainted in excessive degree with syphilis either inherited or 
acquired; and I have never seen a man or woman who was 
afflicted with this repulsive disease who did not readily take up 
the cigarette habit. They crave tobacco, and must have it in 
almost continuous use, and cigarettes are the only way they 
can thus be served / 1 The declaration of a very prominent 
expert is worth remembering: ‘ ‘ When I see a man who is promi¬ 
nent in the business world, or in some other walk in life, smok¬ 
ing cigarettes, I know that he is carrying in his blood the sins 
of parents or grandparents, for which he is not to blame, but I 
should abhor the prospect of having him wed a daughter of 
mine. When I see a woman who is promient in the social set, 
or who stands high in some profession, smoking cigarettes, I 
know that she is carrying in her blood sixty percent or more 
of malignant cancerous or ulcerous taint inherited from parents 
or grandparents for which she is not to blame; but I should 
abhor the prospect of having her wed any decent male friend 
or relative of mine. There is not living to-day any woman who 


242 


Complete Life Building 

smokes cigarettes who has blood fit for marriage or association 
with the opposite sex. These may seem strong words, but they 
can be proved to be true.” 

There are whole nations who are victims of syphilis inherited 
or acquired; and they are likewise addicted to the cigarette 
habit, man, woman and child, without exception; one hundred 
percent syphilitic, and one hundred percent cigarette slaves. 

There are certain peoples who have never been willing to 
take up the cigarette habit, and to this day not one of them is 
syphilitic; these facts are within easy proof. 

Private statistics show that four times as many young men 
as young women are syphilitic; and show at the same time that 
four times as many young men as young women, when sub¬ 
jected to the temptation to smoke cigarettes, become slaves to 
this tobacco habit of intensive smoking. When you find a 
young man or man who is not addicted to the cigarette habit, 
after being given the opportunity to acquire it, you can rest 
assured that he is clean in blood, and free from syphilis. No 
other test is really necessary. It may seem strange that this 
habit should be allied to the most horrible and most malignant 
of all filthy diseases; but facts are facts; the two go together; 
the fearful unrest, and the nervous craving, eating into mind 
and body, when once it meets the soothing poison of the ciga¬ 
rette, must ever after cling to that poison, just as the alcoholic 
slave must have alcohol, and the drug fiend must have the drugs 
that still the rasping torment of brain and blood. 

The awful triangle is now seen in a clear light. 

SYPHILIS carries cancer through six generations. 

CANCER in a syphilitic victim is developed by tobacco. 

TOBACCO, in the intensive form of cigarettes, is craved by 
syphilitics. 

The three are inter-allied. 

In order to understand the relation between tobacco and can¬ 
cer, look in the Index of this book for the latter subject and 
read it. 

Many years ago we learned that the use of the TRUE FOODS 
changed the quality of the blood with a remarkable degree of 
rapidity; and a familiar experiment consisted in observing the 
time required for a cut to heal, both before using the true foods 
as a blood builder and after; and the result proved that the 


Nature’s Doctors 


243 


diet of a person controlled the healing powers of the blood. 
Then came experiments with persons afflicted with inherited 
syphilis taint; a high percentage of this taint was lowered con¬ 
siderably in three years faithful adherence to the true foods; 
and in another three years it was reduced to the safety ratio, 
which permitted marriage. Following these experiments came 
numbers of others along similar lines, until it was possible to 
assert that the true foods rebuilt the blood and through that 
agency made a new body. 

Our advice is this: When a person is suffering from the 
direct stage, let a physician have full charge of the case; but 
when a person is suffering from the inherited taint, sufficiently 
to preclude marriage, as will be determined always by the ciga¬ 
rette craving in either sex, re-build the blood and body by the 
use of the true foods. By so doing all danger of cancer, ulcers, 
tumors, and other maladies such as epilepsy, locomotor-ataxia 
and paresis of the brain, as well as paralysis and a long train 
of syphilitic disorders, will be averted if they have not yet 
secured a hold on health and life. 

In any event avoid all association with the man or young 
man who is slave to the craving for cigarettes. 

Avoid all association with the woman or young woman who 
smokes cigarettes; for she is either a prostitute in secret if not 
openly, or else she carries a taint in every drop of her blood 
that unfits her for a life of decency. These facts are proved 
by evidence and tests that leave no doubt of their truth; and 
are substantiated by all experts of high standing in the study 
and treatment of this disease. 

Newspapers are doing a good work in aiding to establish this 
division between the decent and the filthy classes. The general 
public forms a hasty misjudgment of the papers because they 
sell their space for millions of dollars of annual revenue in 
advertising tobacco and cigarettes. They are not to be blamed 
for needing and wanting this enormous income. Even their 
ingenuity in printing reading matter giving accounts of people 
who have lived to be a hundred years old because they used 
tobacco all their lives, although all such notices are fictitious 
and invented to induce people to use more tobacco and thus 
sustain these advertisements and the great income from them, 
cannot be charged against them as long as they need the money 


244 


Complete Life Building 

from such advertisements, and have space that would other¬ 
wise be empty and carried at a great loss to the papers. 

Set down this fact: You cannot by advertisements, or read¬ 
ing falsehoods, or social fashions, induce any man or woman 
to smoke cigarettes whose blood is clean and free from syphilis. 
On the contrary you cannot save from this habit any man or 
woman whose blood is carrying this inherited malignant taint; 
and no amount of moral suasion, legislation or press censorship 
can raise an effective barrier against that habit. Let the divid¬ 
ing influences go on, so that the world may see and know who 
are clean and who are unclean. 

TEETH TROUBLES 

Ordinarily the teeth will not decay unless the enamel becomes 
weak. It is the hard covering that protects the tooth itself. 
The latter is always soft compared with the covering. This 
enamel is, therefore, the most important part. It is composed 
almost entirely of phosphate of lime. In fact ninety-five per 
cent of tooth enamel is phosphate of lime. 

White bread, cake and other things made from white flour, 
furnish the staple food of the race; yet they contain no phos¬ 
phate of lime whatever. How then can the teeth be sound? 
The main part of the potato, that which is mashed, boiled, 
fried or stewed, contains no phosphate of lime; yet this food 
is one of the most important used by humanity in our climate. 
Refined corn meal contains no phosphate of lime. Rice that is 
refined and polished contains none. Corn starch contains none. 
Tapioca contains none. These and other similar lines of food 
are unable to build tooth enamel. 

We live in an era when the teeth are the weakest part of 
the body. 

In early life, long before decay should set in, the dentist 
discovers a small cavity; yes, he finds another; then another; 
and more later on, although none were expected when the visit 
was first made to his office. It is not many years before the 
mouth of the young man or young woman is an offensive array 
of gold fillings; much more unsightly and far more unsanitary 
than a straight-out artificial set of brave teeth which are ca¬ 
pable of attending to the mastication of food. 


Nature’s Doctors 


245 


A mouthful of gold fillings gives to the man or woman who 
possesses them the most debilitating appearance imaginable. 
Weakness and feebleness are stamped on the victim of this dis¬ 
play. Very soon a tooth falls out in the gold filled row; then 
another; leaving spaces of non-mastication that make health 
impossible. The breath is bad; as bad in fact as the half empty 
mouth. Boots are festering. The tonsils become poisoned. The 
blood is tainted. The skin of the face soon harmonizes with the 
defective teeth, and shows a “dead” color. 

Science and skill to-day are able to supply a full set of teeth 
that will perform the whole duty of wholesome mastication; 
there is no bad breath when cleanliness is attended to; the 
putrid smell of every exhalation of foul air is entirely done 
away with; and pure blood, clear skin and good health may 
easily be the rewards for this investment. 

You may use all the tooth preparations you please, but you 
cannot brush into a sound condition enamel that is crumbling 
away because of lack of phosphate of lime. If you do not eat 
this kind of food you will lose the enamel of your teeth; and 
only one result is possible; the loss of the teeth themselves. 
And you must find this enamel-maker, phosphate of lime, in 
organized form in some product of the vegetable kingdom. You 
will not find it in medicine, nor in soda water; it must be con¬ 
tained in organic vegetable cells. 

In the chapter on the TRUE FOODS, in this book, the whole 
problem is solved; for the true foods contain this needed lime. 

Phosphate of lime is also needed to sustain the bone struc¬ 
ture of the jaw. When teeth decay and fall out the cause in 
nearly every case is lack of this food value; and after the loss 
of a tooth there occurs the falling away or melting of the jaw 
bone itself in that place. The effect of this is seen in old people 
who have concave faces. Now another law comes into play, 
which is that the lack of use and pressure on any part of the 
jaw bone will cause the melting away of that part of the bone. 
A full set of artificial teeth produces this needed use and pres¬ 
sure; and people who keep the mouth supplied with such teeth 
never have the concave faces of old age. But once that de¬ 
crepit face has been established, it cannot be re-built again. 
There are rare instances, however, of new natural teeth having 
grown in old age. 


246 


Complete Life Building 

In this age there is nothing to be ashamed of in wearing the 
teeth that take the place of the natural kind. It is easy to 
have a clean mouth, clean tonsils, and clean saliva. Too fre¬ 
quently the man or woman is seen with semi-decayed teeth, 
the roots of which are sure to be rotten. Rheumatism may 
arise from this condition. Foul tonsils are always the result. 
And now experts have proved that some forms of insanity 
follow the same cause. 

Such teeth are incapable of masticating the food which re¬ 
quires, as does all food, the intermixture of the saliva; but can 
you imagine the kind of saliva that comes from such teeth? 
Bad teeth breed decay and putrid filth; and these offensive 
things mingle with the food that should enter the stomach in a 
pure state. 

A young man of brilliant talents and fine mind began to 
lose the teeth by the breaking of the enamel, due to wrong food 
selection. Instead of getting rid of them as they rotted, he 
left them in his mouth as stumps for twenty years; and boasted 
that for this length of time he had not employed a dentist. 
He was a physician. His career was marred by one wicked 
act after another; misdemeanors, then felonies, then prison. 
He made the confession that, although his parents were of the 
finest moral character, he could not control his erratic nature. 
Then came the advice from an alienist that he have all his 
teeth extracted, which he did. From the very hour when he 
came into the possession of new, but whole teeth, his immoral 
disposition left him. This case attracted some attention a few 
years ago; and was commented on by thousands of doctors who 
had in their experience seen similar cases of criminal minds 
restored to decency by the same methods. 

You can prevent good teeth from decaying by proper food 
selection. 

You cannot re-build them when decay has begun. 

But the bones of the jaw require such food selection in order 
to maintain the fullness of the structure of the face, and avert 
the terrible hollowness of old age. 

TUBERCULOSIS. (Consumption.)—Here we have another 
of the many germ diseases. The infection is clearly traceable. 
There are many kinds of tuberculosis, and almost every part of 
the body is subject to attack; but that variety that assails the 


Nature’s Doctors 247 

lungs is known as consumption. It is by far the most common 
form of this malady. 

1. The basic cause of pneumonia is stomach congestion. 

2. The basic cause of consumption is anaemia, or thin blood. 

3. Both maladies find the vitality at low ebb. 

4. Both maladies, through their basic causes and the low 
vitality of their victims, invite the germs that set up the disease. 

5. The ordinary powers of resistance in a human being are 
so much greater than the power of these germs that the latter 
would have no chance whatever of starting the diseases if the 
vitality of the victim were not abnormally low. This law is 
important ; for it shows that nature takes care of those who 
take care of themselves. 

6. We must first loo k for anaemia if we would combat the 
danger of consumption. The enemies of anaemia are: Fresh 
air, sunshine, lung development, deep breathing, pure water, 
and plain but wholesome foods. These foods must be eaten 
five times daily, but not in large quantities. Anaemia is active 
only when the stomach is empty. This fact is of vital 
importance. 

7. If you can prevent or cure anaemia, you can prevent or 
master consumption. The latter is i mpossib le in the absence 
of the former, no matter how many germs there are about you. 

8. The germs of grippe, influenza, consumption, pneumonia 
and similar diseases, are all carried by dust. These germs do 
not cling to the clothes or the hands or skin, but to dust that 
is on the clothes, hands or skin. They do not cling to the hair 
of the dog or cat that carries them, but to the dust that is 
lodged in the hair of the dog or cat. In other words there can 
be no transportation for the germs except on bits of dust, often 
too small to be seen except by the microscope. 

9. Consumption, therefore, is the dust disease. So is a com¬ 
mon cold. So is la grippe. So is diphtheria. So is the influ¬ 
enza. So is pneumonia. Eliminate dust, and you eliminate all 
these maladies, and end their long train of evils. 

10. Your window is open. Put a cloth screen, dust-tight, in 
the opening. You will get the air, but not the dust, especially 
if you close up the space at the meeting rail of the window. 

11. Dust from the street contains, in pulverized form, all 
that was both dry and liquid; and we will not drop to an enu- 




248 


Complete Life Building 

meration of such forms of filth; you can think them out for 
yourself. That pulverized dust has come in through your open 
windows; it is on your pillows and sheets; it is on your table 
cloth, your clothes, your chairs, your carpets, your plates and 
dishes; and everywhere. If you knew what was in it, you 
would keep it out. 

12. But there are germs in it. That is easily proved. In 
fact, there is not a particle of dust so small that it does not 
carry its germs of disease. Your brooms, your dry dust rags 
and your dusters scatter it; but like the unwelcome cat, it re¬ 
turns and settles on everything. 

13. This shows you how these germs enter your lungs. The 
quickest death for them is dealt by oxygen. They cannot en¬ 
dure much oxygen. So if you can constantly increase the girth 
of your chest by developing greater lung capacity, you can 
fight them out; at the same time changing your diet so that it 
contains anti-anaemic foods, which are as follows: 

14. Eat freely five times a day, if you suspect that you are 
anaemic, one raw egg beaten in a glass of raw whole milk that 
has not been pasteurized. The vitality of the milk is destroyed 
in part by that treatment. 

15. Other articles of food that are useful are: Buttermilk, 
cream; baked potatoes, eating the skins and all; oatmeal that 
has been cooked all night in a fireless; hominy cooked in same 
way; young green peas; boiled onions; custards; bread-custard 
puddings; dates, figs and raisins; home made caramels, all the 
system craves, or any home-made candies, avoiding bought can¬ 
dies; beef at first cooking, but no meats that have been twice 
cooked; lamb, mutton, and other wholesome animal food that 
is relished. 

16. Thousands of people every year are sacrificed to the doc¬ 
trine of no-meat dieting; for this limitation of food sets up 
anaemia. This malady is surely increased by a no-meat diet; 
and lessened by the judicious use of meats with the foods re¬ 
ferred to above. Do not lay down a useful life because you 
wish to pose as a vegetarian. 

17. Vigorous exercise breaks down tissue in the lungs. Con¬ 
sumption breaks down tissue in the lungs, or rather consumes 
it, and that is why it is called consumption. Countless thous¬ 
ands of patients have died too soon because some mis-guided 


Nature’s Doctors 


249 


doctors or teachers told them to exercise. The fact is that the 
patient in this disease needs REST ; it is needed in anaemia 
also. The only maladies that are helped by vigorous exercise 
are diabetes, liver troubles, stomach troubles and constipation. 
It is worth while to remember this fact. 

18. Remember that tuberculosis is based on anaemia, and 
that anaemia thrives when the stomach is empty; but is held in 
check when that organ is digesting wholesome foods. Use no 
other foods than those we have mentioned. Rather than keep 
the stomach empty, eat freely of home-made caramels, de¬ 
scribed in this book. 

TYPHOID.—A well-known doctor said that he would rather 
have small pox than either typhoid or pneumonia. We agree 
with him. The danger of typhoid is in the decay of the intes¬ 
tines; if you recover, you may be crippled in that’ region for 
life. 

This is another germ disease. Nine cases out of every ten 
arise from drinking water. The other case is due to contam¬ 
ination of food that has been exposed. In most towns and 
cities, the breadcases are as full of flies as of bread; and flies 
carry typhoid on their legs. In most towns and cities articles 
of food and fruit are exposed to flies and dust; in fact there 
never was a grocer who, of his own motion, protected them. 
It is always the law that is behind every effort to reduce epi¬ 
demics. In an automobile tour more than a hundred stores 
were visited in towns and cities where flies were crawling over 
bread, cake, pastry, fruits and vegetables. When inquiry was 
made why these things were not protected the answer was al¬ 
ways the same in effect, ‘ ‘ The law has not reached us yet. ’’ If 
the fatalities were to come home to these miscreant grocers, we 
wonder what other excuse than the absence of the law they 
would offer. Will their guilty souls some day dream of the 
corpses, coffins and hearses they have set in motion towards 
untimely graves? Yet people call themselves civilized. 

If you boil the drinking water and milk, you kill the germs 
of typhoid, but you kill also the vitality of the water and the 
milk. In saving yourself from typhoid you invite anaemia. 
Life seems hard with this double enmity hanging over it. 

The best thing to do is to destroy all typhoid wells, and all 
typhoid sources of water. This is easily accomplished if some 


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Complete Life Building 

one will take an interest in the matter. The Government was 
compelled to protect its army, so it drove out of existence every 
typhoid well and water source. Then it injected an anti¬ 
typhoid serum in the arm of every soldier, whether he wanted 
it or not; for one case spreads so rapidly that thousands of 
deaths may follow it if neglected. 


SUMMARY OF ALL-NATURE CURES 

The foregoing pages contain the “ All-Nature’’ Cures as 
follows: 

Acute Indigestion. 

Alcoholism. 

Apoplexy. 

Appendicitis. 

Asthma. 

Blood Pressure. 

Bright’s Disease. 

Boils and Carbuncles. 

Catarrh. 

CANCER. 

Colds and Sore Throat. 

CONGESTION. 

Constipation. 

COLD SORES. 

CRAMPS. 

DANDRUFF and HAIR Troubles. 

Diabetes. 

EYES and EYESIGHT. 

Fatty Degeneration. 

Gall Stones. 

Grippe. 

HAY FEVER. 

Hair, falling out. 

HEADACHES. 

Heart Failure. 

Hearing and Deafness. 

Hardening of the Arteries. 

Indigestion. 

Influenza. 


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251 


INSANITY. 

Insomnia. 

Irritability. 

Kidney Troubles. 

Liver Troubles. 

Lockjaw. 

Malaria. 

Neuralgia. 

Neurasthenia. 

Neuritis. 

Paralysis, Infantile. 

Paralysis. 

Paresis. 

Piles. 

Pneumonia. 

PROFANITY. 

Rabies. 

Rheumatism. 

Stomach Troubles. 

Syphilis. 

Teeth Troubles. 

Tuberculosis. 

Typhoid. 

CONSTITUTIONAL “SYMPTOMS OF DANGER” 

We do not believe that a well person should seek symptoms 
of sickness. But all incurable diseases are, at a certain time 
in life, curable; and their attacks may be wholly overcome if 
met with resistance before it is too late. In the history of every 
hopeless case, there has always been a period of escape that has 
been neglected. This portion of our study is devoted to the 
consideration of those warning signals that are called 

“SYMPTOMS OF DANGER” 

Physicians to-day are classed as ordinary and extraordinary 
in their methods. The ordinary doctors make use of the fol¬ 
lowing symptoms: 

1. PULSE.—The heart-beats may be counted at the wrist 


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Complete Life Building 

and other parts of the body, and indicate the condition of the 
circulation. The action of the heart itself, and the health of 
its valves may be easily determined by instruments that mag¬ 
nify to the ear the sounds within. In like manner, the health 
of the lungs and of the air-passages may be ascertained. 

2. TEMPERATURE.—The heat and fever of the body may 
be learned by thermometers placed in various parts of the body, 
and in the mouth; as well as by the hand of the physician who 
is experienced. 

3. THE COATED TONGUE.—This old form of evidence of 
the state of the liver and stomach, and even of the other organs, 
is still one of the most reliable methods of giving warning. It 
is a safe rule to say that no person should neglect a coated 
tongue. It should be clean at all times, and clean clear through 
to the throat. Take danger by the forelock and drive away 
the enemy that is lurking within the organic life of the body. 

4. THE EYE-BALL.—The white of the eye should be clean 
and clear. If it is muddy, find the cause and cure it. Neglect 
is dangerous. The pupil of the eye, which is the center through 
which the light passes, holds the secret of sanity and insanity 
in many cases, and of the nervous troubles that are brewing in 
the life of the individual. 

5. INSIDE THE EYE.—Such a malady as Bright’s disease, 
which when advanced is incurable, first shows itself in the in¬ 
terior of the eye; and it does not require very expert knowledge 
to behold the presence of the most dreaded of all dangers next to 
cancer. There are many instances where the approach of this 
terrible enemy has been discovered before the malady had 
reached the incurable stage; and perfect health has been there¬ 
by attained. Surely no man or woman can be blamed for hunt¬ 
ing for these opportunities of self-preservation. 

6. ANALYSIS.—To-day it is a very common practice to ex¬ 
amine the water from the bladder in order to know just what 
the organs are doing and to what extent they are failing or 
becoming diseased. Many lives are saved by such precautions. 

7. BLOOD.—Some physicians place value on the analysis of 
the blood to determine what it lacks and by what means it can 
be made perfect. 

The extraordinary doctors, who are very few, but who take 
rank with the greatest men in their profession, seek signs that 


Nature’s Doctors 


253 


are fully as certain, and that expose the human body, like the 
pages of a book, to be read by the expert. But YOU have just 
the same opportunity of knowing your body, and of driving 
away the enemies that seek to bring you down to premature 
death. 

8. The CIRCULATION of the blood comes nearest to the 
surface and vision under the finger nails than at any other 
part of the body. It is as though the nails were panes of glass 
over the blood. 

9. When the blood is pure and the heart healthy, the nails 
are pink in color and this hue is even, not changed in parts. 

10. Wlien a deep tinge of purple appears at the base of the 
nails it is sure evidence that the heart is affected; and this fact 
is made more important when the skin within the hand is pur¬ 
ple-shaded. No time should be lost in seeking a cure for the 
impending danger. 

11. Look for ridges or flutings of the finger nails extending 
from the tips to the base. The nails grow from week to week, 
both in length and in breadth; the latter growth being absorbed 
finally in the length. When the nervous system is diseased to 
a slight extent, the nails grow erratically, and leave these ridges 
which at first are very slight and can hardly be seen; but, later 
on, they become full ridges and are very noticeable if a com¬ 
plete breakdown is coming. In nervous prostration, the nails 
are very rough. As a cure is being effected, they grow smooth 
again. 

12. Wlien the person with fluted or ridged nails shows no 
sign of nervousness, there is but one conclusion, and that is 
exhaustion of the brain nerves, leading to brain paralysis or 
insanity. This is indicated more in the thumb than in the 
finger, and the thumb nails will be very deeply grooved. The 
warning carried by any fluted condition of the nails of fingers 
or thumbs, should be acted upon, and the nervous system made 
whole again by proper attention. There is always time in such 
cases if delay is not permitted. 

13. The RINGS beneath the eyes, in middle-aged or old per¬ 
sons, indicate hardening of the arteries; or premature decrepi¬ 
tude. This can be checked and cured if taken in hand as soon 
as possible after the rings appear. 

14. When the flesh rises up around the edges of the nails and 


254 Complete Life Building 

is puffed, the throat is suffering from a chronic condition that 
should be examined and remedied. 

15. When the finger tips are like bulbs or swollen, consump¬ 
tion is clearly shown. This never fails in telling the truth at 
the early stages of tuberculosis. The condition should not be 
neglected, for nature is trying to give her warning of the com¬ 
ing scourge. Sometimes the fingers bend forward and the nails 
seem to sink into the flesh. 

16. The insides of the hands may be of various colors. When 
they are of a pure pink hue, the body and nerves are in good 
health. 

17. When the insides of the hands are of a purplish red hue 
marked with blue spots, the blood is bad and the heart out of 
condition. 

18. The cold, clammy, white hand indicates anaemia, or poor 
blood and a bad diet. 

19. The watery looking hand, of muddy color or having the 
hue of dough, attended with a bloated appearance, shows to a 
certainty serious kidney troubles that should be attended to 
without loss of time. 

20. The yellow color in the inside of the hands, shows liver 
trouble, and is a never failing sign. 

21. If the nails are abnormally small and delicate, the heart 
is weak and hereditary disease is present. 

The facts given herein are gathered from observations made 
by the best experts, and have been proved in all cases where 
they have been studied. They are uniformly true. 

22. DANGEROUS AGES.—These may be easily ascertained, 
for records give the age of every person dying under normal 
circumstances; and deaths from violence or accident would have 
no bearing on this study. The first year of life is by far the 
most prolific in deaths. Strange to say, the seventy-first year 
is next, based on the percentage of all persons living to that 
age. On the same basis, the forty-fifth year is the next in point 
of danger. After that is the fifth, then the fourteenth, then 
the sixtieth, and the nineteenth. The value of this information 
is to warn people to exercise greater care at the ages stated 
Attention to the health saves many lives, and more are given a 
long lease by preventive care than by healing methods. 



ELEVENTH SECTION 


THE TRUE FOODS 


S AYING LED UP in the preceding pages of this book 
to the consideration of the foods that make a per¬ 
fect body, we now purpose to list and describe them, 
after which we shall apply their uses in the great 
task ahead. This group of eatables does not look 
large nor seem tempting. But when we feed the most valuable 
horse, whose money price is half a million dollars, we do not 
give him a diet of unlimited variety. The doctor who is 
charged with the duty of keeping him in perfect health, knows 
that a few things are best, whereas a great number of different 
things would ruin the animal. Of course man is not of the 
same class as the horse; some men are more intelligent, some 
are less; but it is a fact that man could live better on a half 
dozen kinds of food than on a hundred. 

We now present three lists of TRUE POODS: 

1. The TRUE FOODS of ultimate civilization. 

2. The TRUE FOODS as we find them. 

3. The CURATIVE POWER of TRUE FOODS. 

What is meant by ultimate civilization is that stage in the 
development of human intelligence when man will insist on the 
conditions that are within his grasp to-day, but which he lacks 
the mental interest to obtain. These blessings are not out of 
reach; in fact they are close at hand; but no one seems to care 
whether or not they are secured; so they are lost by default. 

255 













256 


Complete Life Building 


THE TRUE FOODS OF ULTIMATE CIVILIZATION 

1. Whole wheat flour with the germ retained, and the rough 
coats of the outer bran removed. 

2. White corn meal with the germ retained. 

3. White flour free from bleach and lime. 

4. Eggs from hens fed only with pure food. 

5. Flake tapioca. 

6. Whole rice. 

7. Raw milk absolutely clean; and cream and butter from 
same. 

8. Distilled water aerated. 

9. Canned vegetables known to be free from dangerous 
preservatives. 

The above are not all the TRUE FOODS. They are those 
that are not obtained to-day in their best form for yielding 
good health and long life. 

No mental state of indifference is so marked as that which 
will permit six billions of dollars a year to be wasted in this 
nation alone by loss of time, ill health, drugs, doctors, nurses, 
hospitals and operations, when the sum of money paid out in 
the last two years for football tickets, over one hundred million 
dollars in two seasons of a few weeks each, to witness a sport, 
would be more than sufficient to secure all the above nine bless¬ 
ings permanently for the entire nation. Just think of the kind 
of brain, the kind of mind, the kind of so-called intelligence 
that will throw away six thousand million dollars every year, 
and accept with indifference the suffering, the loss of loved 
ones and premature deaths everywhere, that could have been 
averted by the expenditure of the price of football tickets for 
two brief seasons! 

But humanity is humanity. 

It does no good to persist in this line of discussion. 

As long as humanity is humanity so long will men and 
women continue to endure agonizing pain and bury their dead 
in untimely graves, instead of doing the simplest thing to pre¬ 
vent these disasters. But the time will come when men and 
women who have useless millions of money will make it do the 
work of ultimate civilization. 

We will briefly refer to the nine items of the TRUE FOODS 


Nature’s Doctors 257 

that are to-day within the reach of the people, but which they 
will not accept: 

1. WHOLE WHEAT FLOUR.—The white part of the wheat 
grain makes a bread that will rise and that will make toast, 
which are the two great essentials of bread; but it is a badly 
unbalanced food which, by actual tests, if fed alone to animals 
will produce death in a short time. It is the cause of constipa¬ 
tion which itself is the cause of poisons of the most serious 
nature in the human body. On the other hand, the so-called 
whole wheat flour contains the rough hulls of the grain, and 
sets up congestion throughout the entire alimentary canal, do¬ 
ing even more harm than the white flour bread. Millers will 
not retain the germ of the wheat grain for the reason that it 
causes the flour to spoil too soon; and thus they discard the 
most vitalizing agency in the wheat. There is no flour on sale 
to-day that meets the requirements of Nature. 

The remedy is the small mill in every section of the land; 
and a mill capable of removing the rough husks while retaining 
the value of the bran and the germ. We know of no such mills 
in America. Before the recent war they were in use in Europe, 
and were called the Schweitzer process mills; and it was said 
there was one in almost every family. We do not know where 
they can be obtained, nor the address of the makers. But about 
twenty-five years ago the U. S. Government issued a bulletin 
fully describing them; and their use was advocated by Dr. 
Harvey Wiley, of Washington, D. C., when Chief United 
States Chemist. It was proved that the flour made in that way 
could support life indefinitely, as well as such animals that 
would have died from the use of the white flour now in use in 
America. The bread so made had a better flavor than that, now 
eaten here, and contained the value and power of meat, eggs 
and milk. 

Let some wealthy person investigate this matter, and see that 
the right kind of flour mill is constructed; this could be housed 
in a small building. The use of gasoline and oil engines is now 
so common that the expense would be very slight; and one such 
mill would serve as many families as cared to patronize it. 
Freshly ground wheat flour has a flavor that is very attractive; 
then the assurance of purity is worth something. But first 
ascertain the kind of mill needed. A visit to Paris, France, 


258 


Complete Life Building 

might yield this information for prior to the war, many thous¬ 
ands of such mills were in use there. 

2. WHOLE CORN MEAL.—The corn meal that the public 
now buys has the germ removed. When the germ is retained, 
the meal spoils in a few weeks. But the germ is large and 
valuable, holding more real vitality than the rest of the grain. 
It has to be sacrificed so that the worthless part of the meal 
may be kept for sale. The remedy is to grind often and supply 
the demand of a few families once a month or oftener. 

3. PURE WHITE FLOUR.—Some of the States have re¬ 
cently legislated against bleaching flour. This crime is how¬ 
ever permitted by the Government in order not to interfere 
with business activities. When all politicians are driven out 
of office; when it shall be a law that no officeholder shall be 
re-elected to any office after one term; then there will be legis¬ 
lation in favor of the health of the people instead of the health 
of the pocketbook. It is the hope of being re-elected that 
changes would-be statesmen into dishonest politicians. Ask a 
Senator what he is in office for; and he will tell you, if he speaks 
the truth, “for re-election.” Ask any Representative what he 
is in office for; and he will tell you, if he speaks the truth, 
“for re-election.’’ All their speeches, all their deeds, their 
whole conduct and their activities, are focused on the one end, 
“ re-election. ” Thus the honest man of worthy ambitions, is 
compelled to become one hundred percent dishonest in order to 
lay plans, pull wires and follow only one inspired hope, “re- 
election. ’ ’ 

The American people are eating bleached flour; and much of 
the flour contains lime ground as fine as the finest flour; it is 
very* beautiful; a work of art; but a deadly imposition con¬ 
cocted in the interests of unearned dividends. 

Set up a small mill, if you are able to do so, and thus over¬ 
come the three great stumbling blocks to the highest form of 
health; the same mill can give you the whole wheat flour, and 
the corn meal. The bright inventor who will create the right 
kind of a mill, which need not be large, might become a mil¬ 
lionaire by his invention. 

4. EGGS FROM CLEANLY FED HENS.—The hen is a 
natural scavenger, preferring worms, bugs, spiders and filth to 
clean food. But we have seen and have kept hens that were 


Nature’s Doctors 


259 


fed only as the owner chose to feed them, and the eggs from 
such feeding are quite different in taste and quality from those 
fed by the hens themselves. Many persons know they are poi¬ 
soned by eggs, whether the latter are cooked or raw. Blood 
tests show this fact, and doctors have ordered such patients to 
omit this kind of food from their diet. It is probably true that 
eggs from hens that feed themselves as scavengers, are poison¬ 
ous to all persons; and it is probably true that eggs from hens 
fed with only clean food are never a poison to any one. If you 
establish a flour and meal mill, you will have on hand a goodly 
amount of grain feed for a large poultry colony. Thus you 
will secure four results in one line of activity. 

5. FLAKE TAPIOCA.—This is a very light and easily di¬ 
gested food, which should always be eaten with cream. Sago 
is also recommended for a light food. Both these articles are 
going out of use to make way for “pearl tapioca’’ which is a 
spurious food, being made from old and abandoned waxy pota¬ 
toes, wholly unfit for the stomach. The starch from the pota¬ 
toes is cooked and when solid is molded into small pellets. 
The profit of making them is great; but the retail stores reap a 
large gain from selling them. For this reason the dealers are 
eager to handle them in place of pure food; as they are eager 
to sell tuna fish in place of salmon. 

It is the old story of sacrificing health on the altar of the 
pocketbook. 

6. WHOLE RICE.—This grain is one of the most important 
of all the products of the earth as a food for humanity; but 
when deprived of its coat or covering, it is one of the most 
poisonous when eaten by itself. We do not know where you 
can buy whole rice; but it is for sale in many places in Amer¬ 
ica. Avoid polished rice. Avoid unpolished rice as such, for 
it still is the inside of the grain only. Brown rice is the right 
kind. Any wholesale grocery, or any large mailing house may 
give you the information necessary to lead you to it. But it is 
worth getting even at an advanced cost. 

7. RAW CLEAN MILK.—As has been stated the habit of 
sterilizing milk changes it from a life building food to a mere 
life sustaining food. It is better to do this than to use it in an 
unclean condition. But if you set up a flour mill somewhere, 
it may be possible to have as adjuncts to that enterprise a poul- 


260 


Complete Life Building 

try yard and a dairy farm of a few acres. This is getting in 
close touch with Nature; but the idea is delightful even if vi¬ 
sionary. There are whole peoples who find happiness and health 
by such methods. Butter and cream are necessary. 

8. DISTILLED WATER AERATED.—Well water is likely 
to hurry old age ripening on account of its excess of mineral 
matter. All other water is surface water except springs. Un¬ 
der the head of Diabetes you will read of the damage done by 
surface water. Rain water is distilled by rising vapors, and is 
aerated by falling through the air to the ground. It is Nature’s 
greatest blessing; but is not palatable because it picks up dirt 
from the air, which gives it a bad taste and odor. Man has for 
some time imitated this plan of Nature by distilling water; 
but like his efforts to get whole wheat flour, he has stopped on 
the wrong side of success. Distilled water is a poison until 
it is aerated; after which it is an improvement on the best 
rain water ever produced. 

We do not know where there are any water stills for sale; 
but they are easily made. The same kind of a still that will 
make whiskey will serve to distill water. Some day there will 
be a surplus of whiskey stills lying about; for some day the 
American people will wake up to the fact that the very exist¬ 
ence of our national life depends on obedience to the laws; and 
a widespread disregard for the laws means national suicide and 
the death of true liberty. That brand of freedom which is 
known as personal liberty always encroaches on the rights of the 
people as a whole, and sounds the death knell of genuine 
freedom. 

If you construct the flour mill suggested herein, it will be a 
very easy matter to add a water still; and the product can be 
aerated by dropping it from an elevation of eight feet or more, 
from one receptacle into another. 

9. CANNED VEGETABLES.—All canned goods now on 
sale in the stores are adulterated with preservatives that tend 
to cause neuritis. All canned goods made at home by the boil¬ 
ing method alone, are free from such dangers. Canned vege¬ 
tables are very necessary to the health in the season when the 
fresh kinds are not to be had. If you are not able to can them 
in your own house, why not arrange for the flour mill company 
to do the work? They will have the heat and conveniences. 


Nature’s Doctors 


261 


HEALTH COMMUNITIES 


In that far away era when the world will witness the dawn 
of an ultimate civilization, when ordinary common sense will 
take a higher rank in public attention than frivolities, the es¬ 
tablishment of Health Communities will become universal. 
People who dwell in cities will either drift into the country, 
or will have business connections with those who are of the 
country; and then there will be nothing difficult in setting up 
a mill where every one can secure milk, flour, meal, eggs and 
distilled water in absolute purity. 

By so doing they will have obtained the greatest of all foods 
in their best quality; and thus have laid the foundation of per¬ 
fect health and an indefinite prolongation of life on earth. 
Fed with such high grade foods, aided by distilled aerated 
water, the body will not ripen into age. 

But this change for the best will not occur in your lifetime 
nor ours. The very small number of people who are inter¬ 
ested in such undertakings will never start anything worth 
while. A hundred thousand persons every year take fake 
courses of instruction by mail in health betterment, who are 
too lazy mentally to move in the right direction. 

As this period of the world’s history will not witness the 
advance towards the true foods of ultimate civilization, we are 
compelled to do the next best thing, and take 

THE TRUE FOODS AS WE FIND THEM. 

By so doing, instead of throwing up our hands in despair, 
we try to accommodate our battle for perfect health to the con¬ 
ditions that confront us. HERE ARE 

THE TRUE FOODS AS WE FIND THEM 

1. WHEAT PUDDING. 

2. RAW WHEAT VEGETABLE CELLS. 

3. BREAD. 

4. OATMEAL. 

5. RAW OAT VEGETABLE CELLS. 

6. WHITE MEAL. 

7. MILK. 



262 Complete Life Building 

8. CREAM; also ice cream only when home made. 

9. BUTTER. 

10. BUTTERMILK. 

11. HOMINY. 

12. FLAKE TAPIOCA. 

13. BAKED WHITE POTATOES, with skins when young. 

14. BAKED SWEET APPLES. 

15. RAW WHITES OF EGGS. 

16. POWDERED YOLKS OF EGGS. 

17. BEEF; always rare. 

18. MUTTON; and old lamb. 

19. RED SALMON, fresh if possible; otherwise canned. 

20. FISH, fresh only. 

21. RICE. 

22. LETTUCE. 

23. ASPARAGUS. 

24. CELERY. 

25. SPINACH, only when young and tender. 

26. BEETS, very young. 

27. CARROTS, very young. 

28. GREEN PEAS, very young; or limas. 

29. STRING BEANS, fresh or canned. 

30. SUGAR CORN. 

31. ONIONS BOILED. 

32. ORANGES, red, deeply colored, sweet and very ripe. 

33. PINEAPPLE JUICE. 

34. CHERRIES, red or black, and fully ripe. 

35. PEACHES, red and very mellow. 

36. GRAPES, red or black, royal juice only. 

37. RAISINS. 

38. DATES. 

39. FIGS. 

40. SUGAR. 

41. MOLASSES. 

42. HONEY. 

It will be seen that all the foods of ultimate civilization are 
included in the list just given, for they belong there. The only 
reason for discussing them separately is that they are not to be 
had to-day in their best condition; they can be improved; and 


Nature’s Doctors 263 

for that reason they should receive special attention. But we 
must do the best we can with what we have. 

Where the uses and value of the foods have just been con¬ 
sidered they need not be repeated as we go on. So we will ex¬ 
plain the facts that pertain to the others only. 

A FIRELESS COOKER.—Not merely as a cooker which is 
really important, but also to save the cost of fuel in these al¬ 
most fuelless times, every wide awake family should have a 
fireless cooker. We do not know where they can be bought. 
We never have anything for sale, nor are we agents for the 
sale of anything. But as fireless cookers are getting as abun¬ 
dant as stoves, they can he found in any one of thousands of 
stores. 

1. WHEAT PUDDING.—Get Whole wheat with all the bran 
in. It is better to deal with some flouring mill as near at hand 
as possible, so that you may feel sure the* flour has not been 
limed; and whole wheat flour is not likely to be bleached. 
Take a coarse sieve and sift this flour so that the coarse bran 
will not come through. Then take the coarse bran and use a 
mortar and pestles, or any pounding outfit such as all cooks pos¬ 
sess. Pound the coarse bran until all the flour contents are 
free; then sift this, saving the finer part, and giving the coarser 
result to the poultry. 

The flour thus retained is to be cooked and treated exactly 
as you would oatmeal; cooking it in the afternoon or evening, 
placing it in the fireless cooker, letting it cook all night, and 
in the morning toasting it to almost a brown by stirring it over 
a hot stove for a few minutes; and serving it hot with sugar 
and cream. It is delicious if well toasted, and most health in¬ 
spiring. Next best to Wheat Pudding is shredded wheat eaten 
with rich milk or cream, and no sugar. 

2. RAW WHEAT VEGETABLE CELLS.—The word 
vegetable is employed here to indicate that this food contains 
all its minerals in the form of cells, that have been grown by 
plant impulses, to distinguish it from minerals that are given 
in the form of drugs and medicines that have had no vegetable 
organic life. Thus iron in vegetable cells is very necessary to 
humanity; but as a mineral only it will cause tuberculosis of 
the lungs. 

RAW FOODS.—There was a fad in vogue some years ago 


264 Complete Life Building 

in which the eating of cereal grains in a raw state was advo¬ 
cated. All fads, no matter how silly they really are in their 
entirety, generally contain one or more points of value. It is 
true that whole wheat grains, whole rice grains and whole oats 
have very important elements that are assimilated if eaten raw; 
but no human being is able to properly masticate them; and so 
the fad fell through. The item of value however may be se¬ 
cured by a treatment that has been tested and found good in 
many hospitals. 

Take any quantity you wish of bran; pour cold water on it 
and let it stand for an hour; then strain it through one thick¬ 
ness of cheesecloth and discard the part that remains in the 
cloth. The water should be in bulk the same as the bran; quart 
for quart. When cold, for every quart of contents remaining, 
press into it the juice of two good sized lemons. See if the 
flavor appeals to you without sweetening; if not, add as much 
sugar as you would in making lemonade. Drink it when ice 
cold; sipping slowly. By taking a glass daily of this drink you 
can use white flour bread, as the lost minerals are restored. 

3. BREAD has been well discussed in various parts of this 
book; but it is best eaten when three days old, and toasted on 
both sides. If you take the raw wheat vegetable cells you can 
have white bread always. 

4. OATMEAL.—This is prepared and cooked in the same 
manner as Wheat Pudding which we have just described. 

5. RAW OAT VEGETABLE CELLS.—Follow the same 
method with ordinary oatmeal that is stated above for RAW 
WHEAT. 

6. WHITE MEAL.—The white variety of com is less oily 
and more easily digested than the yellow kind; although in 
very cold weather the latter is more warming. The difference, 
however, is slight. 

7. MILK.—As we have explained in previous pages, milk 
should never be drank; always eat it. This means mix it with 
toasted bread, or cereals, potatoes, or other things. 

8. CREAM.—What is true of milk is also true of cream. 

9. BUTTER.—Avoid imitations of this food; especially those 
that come from the vegetable kingdom, as it is well known that 
all vegetable fats are useless as food. Even olive oil is merely 
a lubricant. The world needs more cows; and every farmer 


Nature’s Doctors 


265 


and dairy man should make it a rule never to kill a heifer that 
is in good health, nor a cow until she is too old to breed good 
stock. This should be the written or un-written law. 

10. BUTTERMILK.—This is probably the best of all foods 
because it contains in less bulky form nearly all the value of 
milk. 

11. HOMINY.—This is the coarse kind. Avoid the grits. 

12. FLAKE TAPIOCA.—This has been discussed in a 
previous page of this Section. 

13. BAKED WHITE POTATOES.—Have them of good 
quality, the Cobblers being the best the year round. Have 
them mealy. Bake until cooked through. Peel the light flakey 
skin from the bark; do not disturb the latter. The skin is 
thinner than tissue paper. Remember that the good of the 
potato is in the bark, and directly under it; and that the center 
is of almost no food value. Cut the good portion into bits, salt 
to suit the taste, and add cream if you can get it; otherwise 
milk. Here is a perfect food when so combined, that will sup¬ 
port life indefinitely. 

14. BAKED SWEET APPLES.—Find apples that are fully 
ripe and very mellow; no other kind will do. Bake in oven 
and dress occasionally with brown sugar to make a syrup. 
When done, allow to cool; serve with cream and the syrup that 
was made in the baking; and avoid the inside third. This 
means to eat the skin and the royal flesh. The latter is that 
portion of the apple that is located between the skin and the 
core section. You will find a line of demarcation showing 
where the core section begins; all within it is a poison. It is 
generally two inches in diameter in an average sized apple. 

15. RAW WHITES OF EGGS.— 1 This part of an egg is 
wholly indigestible and worthless as food unless it has been 
cooked about four hours. But when raw it is almost blood; 
being the next step to it. It is never digested, as it will be 
absorbed by the glands of the throat, or picked up by the walls 
of the stomach before there is time for the action of the gas¬ 
tric juice, which makes it of the highest value as a food. More 
than this it heals a congested throat, or stomach, and is a well 
known aid in a case of poisoned stomach. When the latter 
organ is dry, that is, lacking its digestive fluids, the whites of 
eggs will nourish the body for a long time. 


266 


Complete Life Building 

16. POWDERED YOLKS OF EGGS.—The interior of an 
egg seems to be a wholly different kind of food from the white. 
The yolk should be cooked for one hour in boiling water; then 
allowed to get cold; and, when it is to be used, it should be 
grated and spread on toasted bread, with some black pepper 
and salt to taste. 

17. BEEF.—This and mutton are the only two meats that 
can be called life-builders. Other kinds sustain life, but do not 
advance its health or vital energy. Beef and mutton do both. 
Beef should never have the red or pink color cooked out of it; 
the nearer to a raw condition the greater its food value. One 
very good way to feed it to a person who is suffering from 
anaemia is to chop it when raw, spread it on toast, add black 
pepper and salt to taste; then set it in a very hot oven for a 
quick heating of the surface of the meat. This is a splendid 
dish, and much liked. 

18. MUTTON.—This should be used as a roast, but not 
cooked rare, nor yet too well done. A light suggestion of pink 
color should remain. 

19. RED SALMON.—This fish is suited to a healthy stom¬ 
ach, and is highly stimulating. It is better when fresh; but in 
a canned state it should be used once every three days through¬ 
out the year, but in small quantities. It has too much power¬ 
making energy for an ordinary person to be eaten too freely. 
Often and very little at a time is the rule. We speak of the 
canned salmon because we know it is hardly possible to find 
the fresh kind; at least not often. 

20. FISH.—Fresh fish is wholesome and should be used 
boiled if possible; otherwise baked, but not fried. 

21. RICE.—This has been discussed in several parts of this 
book. We strongly advise you to look in the Index and seek 
all references to this food, as it is the key to many health 
questions. 

22. LETTUCE.—Eat this leaf raw. Wash it well, as it car¬ 
ries germs of typhoid and other maladies. 

23. ASPARAGUS.—This vegetable is, next to lettuce, the 
most valuable in its medical qualities of all foods. Eat it daily 
in small quantities during the season when it is fresh; and can 
all you are able to find in a state fit to be put up for winter 
use. 


Nature’s Doctors 267 

24. CELERY.—This should be eaten raw if liked; but when 
cooked it is best in a puree with milk. 

25. SPINACH.—Here we have the king of cooked leaves as 
food. It should be young and tender, and thoroughly cooked, 
then chopped fine and eaten with butter and salt, with some 
black pepper for flavoring it. It contains some iron and min¬ 
erals in minute quantities; and is also slightly laxative. It 
also stimulates a natural action of the intestinal canal apart 
from relieving constipation. 

26. BEETS should be eaten when very young, fresh or 
canned. 

27. CARROTS should be eaten when very young, fresh or 
canned. 

28. GREEN PEAS are valuable when quite small, but are 
to be avoided by all persons except laborers otherwise. 

29. STRING BEANS if of the green flesh round podded 
varieties, are very valuable all seasons of the year. Avoid the 
other kinds. It has taken thirty years of experiment to pro¬ 
duce a variety of string beans that contain their food in their 
flesh, or the part that surrounds the beans. The beans them¬ 
selves do not have much value; and the old kinds that had an 
indigestible stringy shell, were an inferior food. 

30. SUGAR CORN in season, and some tender varieties 
canned will be found a pleasant change of importance. When 
eaten on the ear, use plenty of butter and salt. 

31. ONIONS.—These should be boiled and never cooked in 
any other way. They may be dressed in milk or butter with 
salt and black pepper added. 

32. ORANGES.—There are yellow and there are red 
oranges; and there are sweet and there are sour oranges. Only 
the deeply colored sweet varieties are good; the others may set 
up rheumatism, piles or gastric troubles. The old idea of eat¬ 
ing an orange was on an empty stomach, or just before a meal, 
or as the first course. But the leading hotels have caught the 
idea that they serve to aid digestion, and should follow a meal. 
Since vitamins were discovered, it has been learned that red 
sweet oranges are rich in this value, and all vitamin values are 
best to mix into the food in the stomach; so if eaten in advance 
their juice has long been absent, and their value cannot be 


268 Complete Life Building 

fully obtained. The juice of a sweet orange sipped during and 
after a meal is very helpful in many ways. 

33. PINEAPPLE JUICE.—Besides being an aid to driving 
germs from a sore throat, this juice if mixed with sugar will 
reduce congestion of the throat and stomach. Never eat any 
of the fiber. 

34. CHERRIES.—The body needs iron, and red or black 
cherries contain this in a most wholesome form, if very ripe 
and mellow. 

35. PEACHES should be deeply colored and mellow. 

36. GRAPES.—Like cherries these should be deeply colored, 
and only the Royal Flesh used when taken raw; or the skins 
and Royal Flesh when made into preserves, or grape butter. 
This Royal Flesh is that part of the flesh and juice that is 
found between the skin and the pulp. It is obtained by allow¬ 
ing the fruit to be pressed enough to draw out all the contents 
without bringing force against the pulp. Like the core section 
of an apple, the pulp is a poison. It costs more to use only 
a part of such fruit and discard the rest; but sickness costs 
even more. 

37. RAISINS.—Only the large varieties are to be used. The 
small kinds and currants should be avoided. Raisins are good 
raw or cooked. 

38. DATES.—These are a highly important food, and should 
be eaten raw when wanted, or cooked with rice, whole wheat 
pudding, or other thing. 

39. FIGS.—These may be eaten like dates. 

40. SUGAR.—Either white or brown sugar may be used, the 
brown being better. 

41. MOLASSES, either dark or of medium color, should be 
used when possible. 

42. HONEY is the only animal sweet that Nature furnishes, 
and is highly useful in a raw state. It has the advantage over 
sugar and molasses in that it holds its vegetable cells in animal 
form as originally taken from the plant world. No real animal 
structure exists, however, in honey. Its other advantage is that 
it is not sterilized by heat or cooking, and it brings us that 
closer to Nature. It should follow a meal by being eaten spread 
on small squares of bread after the rest of the meal has ended, 


Nature’s Doctors 269 

but as a part of it. Do not use the comb, as it will gum up 
your insides. 

THE TRUE POODS MUST BE BALANCED 

Everything that is a true food is not necessarily life sus¬ 
taining when taken alone; although some are complete in them¬ 
selves. To animals that live in the fields, Nature gives grass 
which is a complete food for that kind of life. So whole wheat, 
and oats, with possibly one or two other things, will sustain 
human life, because they contain all the needed elements of the 
body. It cannot be said that these things have come about by 
accident; they prove clearly the presence of a directing power 
that is wise and efficient. 

The following TRUE FOODS alone or in the simple com¬ 
binations will give complete sustenance; and if you are inter¬ 
ested in one-food meals, they may be so used. This does not 
mean that one food for all the meals is to be used, like grass 
all the time for cattle and animals that live in the fields all sea¬ 
son through; but that at any one meal you may, if you wish, 
use only one of the following plans: 

Wheat Pudding. 

Raw wheat vegetable cells. See the description in the pre¬ 
ceding pages for this and other articles. While this one article 
would keep a strong man alive, it is not recommended alone 
even at one meal. It is given here, like several others, because 
it is a completely balanced food. 

White bread alone will not do. Eat with it either potatoes, 
or meat, fish, salmon, or eggs; and the bread needs butter or 
fruit, such as is made in the form of butter or preserves. 

Oatmeal is a perfect food if cooked three hours or all night 
in a fireless cooker. 

Raw oat vegetable cells. The remarks concerning wheat vege¬ 
table cells above apply here. 

White meal. This is better than white bread, but should be 
balanced in the same way as stated above. 

Milk. This alone, if rich, will sustain life, but being bulky 
needs bread, meal or potatoes to go with it. Milk should never 
be drank, but sipped slowly, or mixed with bread, meal or 
potatoes. 


270 Complete Life Building 

Hominy. Do not use pearl hominy; get the large flake size, 
known in some stores as samp. What is said of white bread 
applies here; but it is a fact that milk and hominy, if the 
milk is rich, make one of the best evening meals in warm 
weather, with no other food added. This is a fine example 
of a one-food meal. Milk, cream, butter, honey, fruit preserves, 
sugar, molasses, dates, raisins and figs may always be added, one 
or more of them at least, to any one-food meal and not change 
it from being that kind of a meal. Thus bread and grape 
butter, with a glass of rich milk, make a perfect one-food meal 
for evening. Here we have given two such meals for the close 
of the day. You can invent many more. 

Flake Tapioca. This is rather a delicacy. Do not use pearl 
tapioca, as it is made of old waxy potatoes pressed into molds, 
and is a source of congestion, differing wholly from the flake 
kind, which is very helpful. But being an unbalanced food, flake 
tapioca must be eaten with cream, and some other food added, 
especially potatoes, using the flesh close under and adhering to 
the skin of the tuber, with cream also. Here we have a third 
evening one-food meal. You will notice that we call it a one- 
food meal when there are two or more articles that are exactly 
alike, or nearly so. For a powerful breakfast when the day’s 
work is to be strenuous, oatmeal and whole wheat, with milk 
or cream, and nothing added, would suffice; but such a meal 
in the evening would result in sleeplessness. 

Potatoes. There is but one perfect way to cook these tubers; 
that is to bake them. If a person is young, or if an adult has 
a delicate stomach, it is not best to eat the skin; but the only 
really valuable part of the potato is close to the skin; and this 
is best for all stomachs, no matter how delicate. If we had 
our way we would use only the proportion of one half of the 
potato; that is half way between the center and the skin; tak¬ 
ing the skin half, and keeping all the flesh that clings to the 
skin. As the diameter is much greater in that half, it re¬ 
sults in really using about eighty percent of the whole flesh of 
the potato. Only a small part is lost; but this part is guilty 
of many things; notably of causing gall stones and calcareous 
deposits in other places. The flesh that lies close under the 
skin is as near a perfect food as one can find, if eaten with 
salt and cream. It will support life for years, almost in- 


Nature’s Doctors 


271 


definitely. You may not know it, but it is a fact that in some 
hospitals where epidemics have brought many sufferers, they 
make a soup largely of nothing but the skins of potatoes; and 
find it healing. 

Baked sweet apples. These with cream, eating only the same 
proportion of the apple that we have suggested for the potato, 
including the skins unless the stomach is very delicate, make 
a first course for an evening meal; but is unbalanced, and re¬ 
quires some of the foods we have mentioned, or headaches will 
follow; and neuralgia is the penalty of too much fruit, with 
too little of the substantial food, as a basis. 

Raw whites of eggs. When you cook the white of an egg 
you destroy its food value and furnish an irritant that causes 
congestion. This is a hard verdict but it is a true one. The 
white will not digest in the stomach in the sense that the 
gastric juice does not act upon it; but as it is the nearest step 
to pure blood, this is an advantage. People who, under the 
advice of doctors, drink fresh blood at a slaughter house, as 
many consumptives have done, do not have to digest it; it en¬ 
ters the circulation through the pores of the stomach, and the 
white of an egg does likewise. Or, better still, it will enter 
the circulation through the glands of the mouth if held there 
and not swallowed. It heals congested meinbranes when raw; 
and causes them when coagulated by heat. 

Powdered yolks of eggs. These are high class food if the 
egg is cooked as stated in a preceding page. They will balance 
any food that is lacking in complete nutrition. Thus powdered 
egg yolk spread on bread, or flaked tapioca, or meal of com, 
will make a fully nutritious meal; and for this use it has no 
equal. 

Beef, mutton, and old lamb not aged enough to bear the hon¬ 
ored title of mutton, if cooked sufficiently but not too much, 
furnish all the meat a person needs; although the yolks of eggs 
prepared as stated are much better and yield twenty times more 
nutrition, lacking only the mineral salts that are difficult to 
obtain except in beef and mutton. These salts often fill the 
gap between life and death in the effort to cure anemia and 
neurasthenia. Beef should hardly be cooked at all. No meat 
should be cooked until all the juices have been dried up. Beef 
is good roasted or boiled while mutton is best boiled, and is 


272 


Complete Life Building 

very palatable that way. These meats will balance any incom¬ 
plete food, and stand second to egg yolks in this value. 

Ked salmon. The pink is not good, and the cheap grades of 
the red are but little better. The steaks in cans are generally 
fine if put up by a reliable concern. Red salmon has the ad¬ 
vantage of being very concentrated, and but a small piece is 
required at a meal. A can of steak salmon is enough for twelve 
persons, if the can is of the usual large size. Eaten in the 
afternoon or evening meal, it will keep you awake most of the 
night. It is decidedly a noon food. 

Fish. While salmon steaks are very good in cans, all other 
fish should be fresh, except perhaps codfish. As there is one 
best way of cooking a potato, so there is one best way of cook¬ 
ing fresh fish; and that is boiling it. Fried fish will cause 
congestion, and boiled fish will help to cure this trouble. 

Rice. This is an unbalanced food unless the whole rice is 
obtained, and we do not know where you can get that. But 
the whole subject is so important that we advise you to look 
in the Index at the end of this book and find the subject Rice, 
and read everything you can find on the question. It is now of 
historic value. 

All the vegetables listed under the TRUE FOODS are un¬ 
balanced, and require meats or fish and egg yolk with them at 
the same meal. It is pleasant to have at least one vegetable at 
dinner; but the fate of those misguided vegetarians who have 
come to believe that a vegetable diet consists only of vegetables, 
and who do not know that the vegetable kingdom includes the 
grains and cereals as well as the fruits, is a lesson to every¬ 
body who wishes to escape neuralgia, headaches, anemia and 
neurasthenia as results of an unbalanced diet. 

Young shelled beans are more than a vegetable; they are 
semi-grains, as are young peas; but old beans and old peas 
cause congestion. Young beets, young carrots and young spin¬ 
ach are good food; but when old cause congestion. The same 
is true of sugar corn, the young Golden Bantam being the 
best, as Cobbler potatoes are the best of the tubers. Sweet po¬ 
tatoes and yams cause congestion. Boiled onions agree with 
certain persons; but no delicate stomach should entertain them. 
As a rule they are a valuable food. Raw onions are very 
hurtful. 


Nature’s Doctors 


273 


Raisins, dates, figs and grape butter are a group of food 
fruits; not complete enough to make a meal by themselves; but 
very valuable when taken at evening meals with some of the 
foods we have suggested. 

All the other fruits are known as the juice group, and serve 
to give vitality and pure blood if taken aslhe last course of a 
meal. The great mistake of taking fruit as the first course was 
discovered by many experiments carried through years of in¬ 
vestigation. Grape fruit, the abnormal orange, causes conges¬ 
tion. English marmalade, made to rid the land of orange peel 
and lemon peel, is one of the most injurious of the Profane 
foods, and accounts for the excessively irritable nature of the 
natives of that country. All that has been said under the title 
of Fruits in this book should be read with great care. 

There are fruits and sweets that should not be eaten too 
heartily at any time, and not too frequently on an empty 
stomach. 

In addition to the TRUE FOODS, certain game and fowl 
serve as a variety and change for a holiday, and do not result 
in harm to a normal stomach. Poultry that have been fed on 
clean food, make the best of these additional meats. 

THE ONE FOOD MEALS 

The nearer you get to only one food or one kind of food at 
each meal, the sooner you will get well, and the easier you will 
find it to keep well. Before we take up this subject, let us 
look for a moment at the difference between summer and win¬ 
ter foods. 

WINTER DIET.—Many of the things that are best in warm 
weather will fail to heat the body when the cold season comes; 
and you will have cold hands, cold feet, and a cold body in 
consequence. No winter diet is satisfactory as a body warmer 
unless it includes corn meal. This was the main food of the 
early settlers; in fact almost all they could get to eat for years. 
But once a day for corn meal food in cold weather will suffice. 
The com meal can be boiled and eaten as a pudding with 
cream and sugar on cold days, and with milk and salt on 
warmer winter days. It can- be put in pans and when stiff 
may be sliced and the slices baked in an oven, and eaten with 



274 Complete Life Building 

butter; avoiding frying and securing the same results. Corn 
bread is also very good. When this food is eaten in any form, 
all the other foods can be used in variety in the coldest weather. 

In winter eat more butter, more cream, more dates, more 
figs, more hominy, more egg yolks, more red salmon, and more 
home made candy, than in summer. These foods are heating. 
If eaten as freely in warm weather as in cold you will be very 
uncomfortable. By regulating the kind of food you can be 
too hot in summer and too cold in winter; or you can be com¬ 
fortable in both seasons. Most persons suffer unnecessarily in 
this way, when they could avoid all unpleasant feeling. 

SUMMER DIET.—A low diet, or unbalanced food, will cause 
neuralgia, or headaches; otherwise the warm weather eating 
could be confined to a few of the cooling articles. These are, 
in the first place, vegetables; but taken alone they would cause 
headaches. Whites of eggs are cooling; the yolks are heating. 
Fresh fish, not salmon, is cooling; salmon is heating. Oatmeal, 
and wheat products are the same every day in the year; neither 
heating nor cooling. The same is true of rice, tapioca, pota¬ 
toes, beef, mutton, and except in the hottest weather, of hominy 
which should be a dish all the year round. If you find that 
your summer diet is causing headaches or neuralgia, go back in 
part at least to the winter diet just stated. 

Remember that there are many articles in the TRUE FOODS 
that are intended only as extras; not being a complete food they 
should not be depended on solely to keep you in health. These 
extras are all valuable as such; and include the vegetables and 
fruits. Without them life would be rather one-sided as far as 
the diet is concerned. 

ONE FOOD MEALS were originated to cleanse out the sys¬ 
tem and re-build a body that had been abused by congestion. 
They need not be followed if not attractive. By one food is 
meant one kind of food, not one article. 

Baked potatoes and cream, or with milk instead, make a de¬ 
lightful one food meal; and might be tried for one of the eve¬ 
ning meals; just one only; eating all you wish; but eating the 
potatoes close to the skin, or with the skin excepting the outer 
thin shell. You will feel like a new person the next morning 
compared with having a clogged intestinal canal from eating 
and stuffing a meal of the profanity foods. 


Nature’s Doctors 


275 


But baked sweet apples with cream and sugar, and nothing 
else for the evening meal, will cause a headache; yet taken for 
breakfast with a dish of oatmeal, the effect will be very pleas¬ 
ant; or taken for supper with a dish of rice and cream, or 
hominy and cream, will be delightful; and as these foods are 
practically all alike they stand as making a one food meal. 

Many of the ablest men living have eaten for their break¬ 
fasts for most of their lives only a large serving of oatmeal, 
with sugar and cream in winter, and salt and rich milk in 
summer. This is one food not only at one meal, but at every 
meal of the year and for half a life time of years. 

The great President, Roosevelt, ate for his noon meal for 
many years during his strenuous service at the White House 
nothing but a bowl of bread and milk; this was another one 
food meal, not for one meal, but for all the midday meals for 
many years. 

The greatest merchants and financiers have adopted the one 
food meals as far as possible to save their health and protect 
their energies. They thereby have clearer brains. Do you 
know that it costs vitality to digest any of the profanity foods? 
And it clouds the mental powers to fight them and their poisons 
out of the system. 

Rice with egg yolk might suffice as a near one food meal; 
it is very nourishing. Rice with sugar and cream is a good 
evening meal one day in a week in any season except winter. 
Fish and potatoes make a good noon meal; of course adding 
one or more vegetables. 

But it is advisable to have at least one of the following foods 
at any meal, if you wish to avoid headaches and neuralgia: 

Wheat; Oatmeal; Corn Meal; Hominy; Rice; Baked Potatoes. 

Here are six staple foods; one at least should be present as 
a basis for what other foods you have at each and every meal, 
any day of the year. 

All the other things are aids only. 

CONGESTION OF THE STOMACH—THE BATTLE 
GROUND OF LIFE AND DEATH 

Take away this one condition and life can be prolonged in¬ 
definitely. 


276 


Complete Life Building 

Congestion is painless. 

When it reaches a certain intensity it becomes inflammation 
which is very painful. 

Congestion is a lesion or injury to the delicate porous lining 
of the stomach. This lining extends upward to the throat and 
mouth, as well as the nose; then downward from the throat into 
the lungs, involving even the sack that encloses the entire lung 
chamber; and it reaches also the sack that encloses the heart. 
From the stomach it follows the alimentary canal through all 
the intestines; involving every organ on the way. 

As soon as congestion begins in the stomach its tendency is 
to spread in each direction from that organ. As it is kept ac¬ 
tive there it reaches farther along the canal to all other parts; 
but when it is lessened in the stomach it draws in the injury 
elsewhere by a receding movement of the latter. 

It has its origin by abuse in eating or drinking. When this 
abuse is continually repeated the influence is felt in every part 
of the body where there is a membranous lining. Further 
repetition of the injury results in a chronic condition that con¬ 
verts the natural and wholesome mucus that lubricates all mem¬ 
branes, into a thick germ-laden mass known as catarrh. It is 
in this way that catarrh of the stomach originates. As con¬ 
gestion keeps on traveling to the extremes of the membranous 
canal, we have catarrh of the throat, or the bronchial passages, 
and of the nose. In the stomach this catarrh is gastritis; in 
the lung passages it is bronchitis; in the throat it is laryngitis, 
and pharyngitis; in the nose it is plain catarrh. What is called 
a “frog in the throat’’ is due to stomach congestion. 

Down below the stomach this injury runs along the canal, 
and the liver becomes diseased; then Bright’s Disease of the 
kidneys may follow. Bowel movements become sluggish or ex¬ 
cessive, in one extreme or the other, when the intestines are 
congested; and constipation results. There never was a case 
of constipation that was not cured by conquering congestion 
of the stomach. 

Catarrh dwells all along the intestinal canal; until some day 
it eats off the thin and delicate surface of the canal near the 
right lower side, and makes an opening into the appendix where 
foul matter collects and decays, giving rise to appendicitis; 
another “itis.” All kinds of “itis” are caused by congestion. 


Nature’s Doctors 


277 


In an aggravated and acute form involving the great membrane 
covering of the bowels it becomes peritonitis; and is generally 
fatal; although the latter malady may arise from a wound. 

The one great universal cause of sickness and disease is con¬ 
gestion. 

The worst condition is constipation. 

Here we have cause and effect. 

To repeat what has been said before and should be said a 
million times again: 

1. There are but two causes of sickness and disease: inherited 
syphilitic taint; and congestion of the stomach. 

2. The guilty party in the inherited taint may he as remote 
as six generations; but it leaves a long train of maladies for 
the generations that follow. 

3. Congestion arouses that inherited taint, which might other¬ 
wise have remained dormant through life. 

4. In curing congestion, that taint is lessened if not too deeply 
seated; and there are many thousands of cases where the taint 
has been fully eradicated by the method of overcoming con¬ 
gestion. 

5. This brings the human race to-day face to face with prac¬ 
tically but a single foe: CONGESTION OF THE STOMACH. 

6. It is caused, and is also increased by use of the false foods 
and drinks. 

7. It is lessened and ultimately cured by use of the TKUE 
FOODS and drinks. 

Here are some examples of the apparently trivial causes of 
congestion of the stomach; and please remember that it is pain¬ 
less at all times, and is known by its progeny of results. The 
best proof that no congestion exists is found in the fact that a 
cold is absolutely impossible; that is, you cannot possibly catch 
cold no matter what the exposure. By cold we mean sore 
throat, coughing, sneezing, catarrhal running of the nose or 
pharynx, and such conditions as are commonly known under 
the name of a cold, including the grippe and influenza, which 
are only enlargements of the familiar affliction. 

Very simple things set up congestion in the stomach. 

Bran will do it; whole wheat bread will do it; oatmeal cooked 
a short time will do it. Graham bread was so named after its 
inventor, a man by name of Graham. He announced it as the 


278 


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cure all of those evils that come from white flour. He died 
of catarrh of the stomach caused by Graham bread; and he 
was not an old man at the time. 

If you cook oatmeal three hours, or better still all night in 
a fireless cooker, it will not cause congestion, but will tend to 
cure it if eaten with cream and without sugar; but the same 
oatmeal cooked the shorter length of time stated on the pack¬ 
ages, will set up congestion. Bran cooked in the manner sug¬ 
gested under the TRUE FOODS in a previous Section of this 
book will not cause the trouble; as its sharp hulls are sifted 
out; even long cooking will render them harmless. Bran is 
given to horses and cows to scour them, that is, to irritate the 
intestinal canal until the bowels move rather freely if not vio¬ 
lently. Surely such food is not fit for the human stomach. 

A baked potato, selecting the part closest to the skin, will 
tend to heal and cure congestion; the skin of an old potato may 
cause it in slight degree; of a new potato that is ripe, it will 
do no harm and is a high grade food. But if you cut away 
the outer part of a potato to the depth of a third or quarter of 
an inch, as is done by careless cooks, the starchy parts remain¬ 
ing, no matter how cooked, will cause congestion. The part 
that is discarded will cure congestion. Here is an object lesson 
in economy and in food value. Mashed potatoes thus prepared 
from the interior will produce this trouble. So will mashed 
soggy potatoes; and also under-done potatoes. Now if you fry 
this food in large pieces or thick slices, the harm is still greater; 
and when fried thin, much greater yet; while Saratoga chips 
will, if persisted in, cause gastritis and even acute indigestion 
and death. 

All lard and all fat from swine cause congestion for the very 
plain reason that the gastric juice of the stomach will not mix 
with swine fat, especially in the form of lard. Bacon always 
leaves injury, despite the fact that it is an appetizer. A whole 
stomach needs no appetizer. Pastry even clogs the pores of 
the stomach with an irritant mass of dough. Any crisp meat 
surface will do injury; and crisp food surface of any kind. 
New bread and hot bread, new cake and most puddings cause 
congestion. 

Every article mentioned under the title of PROFANITY 
in the Curative Section of this book sets up congestion. It is 


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279 


not necessary for us to repeat that long list here. Look at 
your Index at the end of this book and find the page on which 
those foods are discussed. You will then know what to avoid. 

From what has already been stated, it can be seen that all 
the vital organs are encased in membranes or coverings. These 
membranes have delicate inner linings, which are porous, and 
it is through these pores that a lubricating and vitalizing mucus 
is constantly flowing, without which all life in the body would 
cease. 

The brain, which is the seat of intelligence and of control 
over the faculties and powers of the body, is encased in mem¬ 
branes which are known as meninges. These meninges throw 
through their pores a continual stream of mucus highly charged 
with electrical acids, by which thought is possible. When the 
brain is actively thinking or studying, this mucus becomes very 
active and abundant; in sleep it almost ceases. No mucus can 
be more healthful than the membranes that secrete it. Con¬ 
gestion from the stomach travels rapidly to these meninges. 
The latest statements on the subject of insanity from experts 
who are known as alienists, are to the effect that a congested 
stomach interferes with the normal action of the brain; and 
that chronic congestion induces insanity. The reason is easy 
to see. 

Nothing more quickly and more violently congests the stom¬ 
ach than alcohol; from a normal gray color when in perfect 
health, the lining of the stomach becomes a vivid red, changing 
under the influence of more alcohol to a malignant purple. 
This excessive congestion travels rapidly to the meninges of 
the brain, and renders thought incoherent, and action erratic. 
Such a brain that would kill when thus congested, is too often 
directing some motor vehicle, too often maiming children, too 
often taking human life; and the laws permit these atrocious 
crimes by their leniency and the grotesquely inadequate sen¬ 
tences of chicken-hearted judges; while there is a growing dis¬ 
trust of course of justice and a profound contempt for the ad¬ 
ministration of the law. We cite this as one of thousands of 
consequences of abuse of the temple of life, the human body. 

Whatever seriously congests the stomach, whether food or 
drink, medicines or drugs, directly or indirectly congests the 
meninges of the brain, and deprives the man or woman of the 


280 Complete Life Building 

highest value in life, the perfect functioning of the brain and 
the faculties. From every standpoint, whether of health or of 
safety to self and others, of moral or immoral habits, of irri¬ 
tability or gentleness, attractiveness or repulsiveness, success or 
failure, happiness or misery, life or premature death, the whole 
story of human suffering and human emancipation is written 
in the one word: CONGESTION. 


TWELFTH SECTION 


RALSTON REGIME 



iHE WORD REGIME as used here refers to a sys¬ 
tematized course of living from day to day, and in 
this sense is a shorter form of the word regimen. 
It is also a pleasanter word. All ambitious persons 
are eager for some standard of conduct by which to 
live and act. We have had many thousands of requests from 
Ralstonites for rules of living, presented in concise form, which 
they may memorize and apply in each day of life; something 
to guide them aright in the midst of countless forms of advice 
pulling them in all directions like a boat blown about by diverse 
winds, with no port in sight, and no harbor of safety towards 
which to bend their course. 

Nearly two hundred years ago two young men set up for 
themselves a daily regime, which they followed carefully and 
successfully; and from their methods of living they were given 
the name that grew until it embraced many millions of fol¬ 
lowers; and, as the greatest of all historians, Macaulay, said, 
this movement changed the face of all England, and its influ¬ 
ence extended to all parts of the world. 

It would be both pleasing and inspiring to know that a con¬ 
siderable number of earnest Ralstonites were living daily ac¬ 
cording to a systematic plan such as is furnished herein. To 
make it easy to adopt and follow it is presented in two phases: 
THE I WILLS and THE I WILL NOTS. 

281 



























282 


Complete Life Building 


THE I WILLS 

1. I WILL arise each morning at least half an hour before 
breakfast, and earlier if possible. 

2. I WILL take either a bath or a water dip, wetting the 
whole body and quickly drying it with towel. 

3. I WILL give my teeth a thorough cleaning, and rinse out 
my mouth with an antiseptic wash. 

4. I WILL drink a half glass of cool or cold water, and more 
if I feel inclined to do so. 

5. I WILL stand erect raising the top of my head as high 
as possible so as to stretch the spine at the back of the neck 
as if I were trying to add an inch to my height. I will con¬ 
tinue this for half a minute. 

6. I WILL drink now another half glass of water. 

7. I WILL raise my right arm as high over my shoulder as 
I can so as to stretch my stomach muscles; and will repeat same 
with my left* arm; then with both arms at the same time; and 
repeat this stretching action six times in each way, or eighteen 
times in all. 

8. Going to an open window or out of doors after dressing, 
I will empty all air possible out of my lungs by slow exhala¬ 
tions, pressing in my lower ribs with the aid of my two hands 
so as to crush them in; then slowly inhale fresh air until my 
lungs are filled to capacity; and I will repeat this double action 
six times. 

9. On the last inhalation just stated I will hold my breath, 
raise my elbows to the height of my shoulders, and bending 
only at the wrists I will rapidly tap my chest in every part 
for ten seconds; then exhale slowly all air. 

10. I WILL now take another half glass of water. 

11. I WILL firmly resolve to cultivate a pleasant mood when 
I am alone and when I meet others. I will greet those I meet 
in a kind and cheerful manner, and speak encouragingly to 
everybody. 

12. I WILL adopt the rules of good form at all times and 
especially at the dining table. 

13. I WILL be polite to all persons. 

14. I WILL be refined in speech and act. 

15. I WILL avoid slang speech, slang songs and slang music, 


Nature’s Doctors 283 

and will cultivate good taste in everything, on the principle 
that a clean mind invites clean health in a clean body. 

16. I WILL be true to all promises, and all vows, and will 
obey the laws of my country in both letter and spirit as an 
example to others for the protection of our national life. 

17. I WILL, as nearly as I can, adopt a one-food breakfast; 
that is only one food for breakfast each morning; but not nec¬ 
essarily the same kind of food for every morning. But if this 
cannot be arranged I will eat as simple a breakfast as can be 
had. 

18. I WILL eat a breakfast that shall sustain me for what¬ 
ever tasks I have before me for the forenoon. 

19. I WILL avoid the false foods, and those that lead to 
indigestion or a sick stomach; taking instead those that are 
wholesome and health inviting. 

20. I WILL commit to memory the list of TRUE FOODS 
in this book, in order that I may adopt some of them or all 
of them as far as I am able to get them or such of them as I 
like. 

21. I WILL commit to memory the profane foods listed in 
the preceding Section under PROFANITY, in order that I 
may avoid them. 

22. I WILL eat at noon the heaviest meal of the day. 

23. I WILL make my evening meal the lightest of the day 
in order that my sleep shall not be broken by difficult intestinal 
digestion, and my appetite for breakfast shall not be cloyed 
by useless food clogging the system during the night. 

24. I WILL brush my teeth after each meal, if possible to 
arrange this habit. 

25. I WILL consult a dentist four times a year in order 
that no bad teeth or festering roots shall remain in my mouth 
to poison blood, nerves and brain. 

26. I WILL engage in no quarrel or dispute during the day 
or night. If others are disposed to quarrel I will control my¬ 
self as an exercise of my power over evil impulses. 

27. I WILL employ wisely all my spare time; when I have 
leisure even if only brief, I will try to improve my mind and 
prepare myself for something better in life than my present 
position. 

28. I WILL study the wishes and desires of others in spend- 


284 Complete Life Building 

ing my evenings, and will not give myself up to selfish pur¬ 
suits and engagements. In such arrangements I will be gener¬ 
ous towards those who may find pleasure in my companionship. 

29. I "WILL every evening, if not at some time during the 
day, open my Ralston Book of Complete Life Building, and 
read carefully at least one page in order that I may adopt it 
as my daily companion and helper. 

30. I WILL once at least in every twenty-four hours attend 
to a peristaltic movement in order that my system may not 
carry intestinal poisons; and this habit I will insist upon at 
as near the same time each day as possible, as I know that it 
means more to life and health than any other habit. 

31. I WILL every night just before retiring take some kind 
of a bath; either a complete water bath, or a water splash 
bath, or a severe rubbing with a dry towel known as a dry 
bath, in order that the pores of the body shall not become 
clogged and throw back into the circulation the poisons that 
seek outlet. 

32. I WILL use double underwear around the upper part 
of the body in cold weather, instead of thick underwear, as 
explained later on in this Section. 

33. I WILL protect my feet against dampness of the ground 
or pavements by heavy soled shoes; and in wet weather by 
water-proof overshoes or rubbers. 

34. I WILL wear in wet weather a water proof coat or 
covering. 

35. I WILL consider others and the burden I shall be to 
them if I am sick; and will therefore avoid foolhardy risks of 
every kind. 

36. I WILL keep my mind alert and watchful against acts 
of carelessness whereby I may be hurt or maimed in an acci¬ 
dent that could be easily avoided by proper precaution or at¬ 
tention; for I know that if I am made helpless the care and 
cost will come upon others, and they should not be made to 
suffer for my heedlessness. 

37. I WILL study the importance of exposure to varying 
temperatures as described in the Rules of Common Sense that 
follow in this Regime; so that my health may not be impaired 
or made too sensitive to heat and cold. 

38. I WILL wear in bed at night wholly different clothing 


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285 


from that which I wear during the day; as I realize that it is 
injurious to wear next to the body at night any of the under¬ 
clothing or other clothing worn by day. 

39. I WILL cultivate at all times the habit of nose breathing, 
so as to avoid mouth breathing; knowing that this habit if 
established by day will become a habit at night in sleep. 

40. I WILL protect my house or living rooms from flies and 
mosquitoes; and keep these insects from coming in contact with 
food as far as possible; and will try to avoid dust contamination 
on food and clothing. 

41. I WILL secure each night when possible eight full hours 
of sleep, and will avoid taking the advice of people who declare 
that a proper amount of sleep is unnecessary to the health; for 
I read in this book that repair of nervous strength and of 
physical tissue can take place only in sound slumber. 

42. I WILL seek to prevent ill health by taking care of good 
health when I have it; and will give no heed to the false ad¬ 
vice that health will take care of itself. 

43. I WILL read each day at least one of the Rules of 
Common Sense that follow in this Section. 

THE I WILL NOTS 

1. I WILL NOT abuse my stomach by over-eating, or eating 
the false foods, or eating improper things between meals. 

2. I WILL NOT be influenced by the advice of others as to 
what to do or not to do in matters of health, unless such advice 
has the authority of sound wisdom or tested knowledge. In 
other words I will not allow my mind to become pliable putty 
to be shaped and molded by the opinions of others when I have 
the opportunity of ascertaining the facts for myself. 

3. I WILL NOT have faith in any doctor who tells me that 
I can eat whatever I wish; for now I know that my body is 
the sum total of the things that enter my mouth; I am what 
I eat; and non-foods poison the blood and become the basis of 
disease. 

4. I WILL NOT try to be cheerful when my brain and gen¬ 
eral system are congested and my nervous power is strained 
to the breaking point by the poisons of a bad diet. I will 
change the diet first, and be cheerful afterwards. 


286 


Complete Life Building 

5. I WILL NOT defy the laws of sound living and thereby 
lessen my earning power, lose valuable time, and drag others 
down by unnecessary ill health. 

6. I WILL NOT when leaving the house of a friend stand 
in an open doorway saying goodby and chatting while I am 
clothed for outdoors and my friend is exposed to dangerous 
drafts while clad for indoors. 

7. I WILL NOT venture out on damp or wet streets with¬ 
out ample protection for my feet against cold and moisture ; 
as I know that thousands of cases of fatal pneumonia have 
their origin in this foolhardiness. 

8. I WILL NOT be bull-headed, obstinate or perverse in re¬ 
fusing to wear proper clothing and full protection against rain, 
snow and chilling winds; and will listen to the advice of steadier 
minds in such matters. 

9. I WILL NOT stand on damp ground, or cold brick, stone 
or cement walks, talking to some acquaintance; even if I have 
rubbers on, the chilled walk is sure to take from me a certain 
degree of vital energy and resistance to colds and disease. 

10. I WILL NOT take a bath on a full stomach. 

11. I WILL NOT take any cold water bath, or cold water 
dash that produces a shock, as I know that such methods re¬ 
sult in nervous losses. 

12. I WILL NOT expose myself or others to a chilling draft, 
as I am told that paralysis is induced in that way. 

13. I WILL NOT open a car window when the outdoor air 
is chilly, so that the wind will blow on me or on any person sit¬ 
ting in the seat behind me; nor will I sit at or behind any win¬ 
dow so open. 

14. I WILL NOT wear outdoor clothing in heated rooms, 
nor indoor clothing out of doors when the temperature is low. 

15. I WILL NOT wear thin soled shoes, nor low shoes at 
any time when the feet will be exposed to chilling conditions. 

16. I WILL NOT wear high heeled shoes when by so doing 
I bring a strain on the spine, or endanger the internal organs, 
or cause misplacement therein. 

17. I WILL NOT kiss upon the lips any person whose mouth 
may carry the germs of disease, as I know that many epi¬ 
demics have spread and caused fatal results by this unhygienic 
custom. 


Nature’s Doctors 


287 


18. I WILL NOT cough or sneeze at the table, or in the 
presence of others, or in public places, unless I use my hand¬ 
kerchief to control the exodus of germs from my nose and 
mouth. 

19. I WILL NOT wear against my skin any soiled clothing, 
whether underwear, collars, or clothing of any kind; as boils, 
carbuncles and erysipelas are the fruits of body soil on cloth¬ 
ing worn too long. 

20. I WILL NOT use patent drugs, pills or advertised cura¬ 
tives unless prescribed by a physician of good standing. 

21. I WILL NOT chew anything on an empty stomach that 
is not food or other thing to be swallowed and digested; as 
the use of the palate causes a flow of gastric juice to the stom¬ 
ach which, when empty, begins to set up the process of diges¬ 
tion against its own walls, and leads to severe attacks of gas¬ 
tritis and inflammation. 

22. I WILL NOT drink soda water at any time, as it de¬ 
stroys the tone of the stomach by its carbonic acid gas, and 
leads to chronic indigestion. 

23. I WILL NOT use any store candy; but will depend on 
my own home made kinds which I can know to be pure and 
free from the many adulterations now employed, and from 
saccharin, or coal tar sweetening, which is almost universally 
used in candies and soda water syrups and fruit flavors. 

24. I WILL NOT drink tea at any time, as it quiets the 
nerves which means that it deadens them and thereby slowly 
lays the foundation for paralysis. The United States Govern¬ 
ment says that iced tea is slow suicide. 

25. I WILL NOT worry over matters that I can make better 
by being more alive; but I will worry over all conditions that 
operate to reduce the public health and safety, and will keep 
worrying until I have assisted in awakening some part of the 
public interest in self protection against epidemics and dangers 
of wide-spread disease. 

26. I WILL NOT permit my mind to become twisted by 
vicious mental habits as all such habits affect first the nerves 
and then the general health; the most vicious of all these 
habits being that of gambling and playing games of chance, 
having no basis in any process of reasoning for which the mind 
was created, and leading to no sane logical result, such activity 


288 


Complete Life Building 

of the brain serving to scatter into worthlessness and an in¬ 
coherent mass the finest jewels of human intelligence. 

27. I WILL NOT act, or live, or speak any falsehood, or 
break any proper promise, or cheat any person, or exaggerate 
any facts, or take undue advantage over any one; for all these 
things are the outgrowth of a twisted mind, crooked when it 
should be straight; and there never can exist in any body a 
perfectly sound health when the mind is unclean or abnormal; 
and honesty is the true evidence of the normal mind. 

FACTS ABOUT BATHING 

When a fire is built in the furnace the fuel is supplied in 
order to keep the fire burning so that heat may be obtained as 
wanted. The fuel must be of the right kind. In spite of that 
fact it does not all burn. There are ashes. If the ashes are 
not removed, the fire will go out, for it will not be possible 
to maintain a supply of fuel if the furnace is clogged with 
used up material. 

The same conditions prevail in the human body, which after 
all is only a furnace attached to the machinery of the muscles 
and nerves with the bones as the parts that furnish stability. 
Nature provides four methods whereby the ashes of the used 
up food may be removed: 

1. By the intestines. 

2. By the kidneys. 

3. By the skin. 

4. By the lungs. 

If any one of these four exits is inactive, death results. 
Constipation is the most common and most persistent cause of 
death-making maladies. But if the kidneys, even for a short 
time, refuse to do their work, death is not only very painful 
but sudden, even giving no warning at times. The lungs will, 
by inactivity, cause death in a few minutes, owing to the pent 
up poisons that are not thrown off. 

Over half of the work of the kidneys can be thrown upon 
the skin. In fact when one suffers from kidney disease, the 
work of the skin is so important that life may be prolonged 
for years after hope has weakened in the attempt to cure the 
kidneys. This knowledge has been taken advantage of by doc- 


Nature’s Doctors 


289 


tors for many years. In a popular sense we should regard the 
skin as a collection of engines whose work is to pump the 
poisons out of the blood, and to deposit them on the surface 
of the body. They cannot throw them beyond the surface, as 
their power is confined to extracting them from the blood and 
setting them free at the terminals of the pores. 

It is easy to see the necessity of the human being to remove 
these poisons from the surface of the skin. 

This removal should take place once in every twenty-four 
hours at the most. If omitted, the poisons are re-absorbed into 
the blood and set up skin diseases of which there are enough 
to fill a large volume in the doctor’s library. 

The more freely a person perspires the better it is for the 
health of the body; yet many women buy a semi-varnish with 
which to stop perspiration, especially under the arms. If you 
put this same semi-varnish over the whole body, you will die 
in twenty minutes. 

Whatever will open the pores will help throw off the dan¬ 
gerous poisons that must be driven out of the blood. What¬ 
ever will close them will lock them in, and it is well known 
that such poisons destroy the tone of the nerves as well as of 
the whole body. 

COLD WATER bathing closes the pores of the skin, and 
locks in these most dangerous enemies of life. For generations 
it has been supposed that cold water bathing hardened the 
skin; so it does; so will varnish; and both are harmful. There 
has been of late* among skin specialists a consensus of opinion 
that cold water bathing does a hundred percent more harm 
than good. They agree that the skin does not need harden¬ 
ing; but rather needs softening and invigorating. 

The SHOWER BATH has been proved a delusion. On the 
one hand it Jocks up the pores of the skin. On the other hand 
it does not clean the skin. This last statement was challenged 
by a pretty maiden who had boasted of the refreshing and 
cleansing effect of the shower bath. The doctor-friend who 
was visiting at her home, said: * ‘Will you take a cloth, dip 
it in alcohol, and rub your neck, and any other part that has 
been cleansed?” This she did and was surprised to find the 
cloth very dark and grimy with dirt. “You see,” said the 
doctor, “the shower bath drives the dirt IN, not OUT.” 


290 


Complete Life Building 

Among the new things that have been added to the knowl¬ 
edge of the body and its health requirements, which have pro¬ 
duced a revolution in methods, is that of bathing. 

The improper way is to get in a bath tub containing water. 

All shower bathing should be abandoned. If the water is 
hot, it is dangerous because it cannot be applied properly. It 
is also dangerous because of accidents. Many children have 
been badly scalded by the sudden opening of the valve by care¬ 
less nurses, and by themselves. Several adults have lost their 
lives from being scalded to death by opening the hot water 
valve by mistake. Once the scalding water falls on the bare 
body nothing can be done to save life. Therefore cut off all 
shower bath connections. 

The proper way to bathe is to get in the empty bath tub, 
with the waste open to let all water flow away. Get a twelve 
or fourteen quart pail, and mix hot and cold water in it up 
to the temperature of the body, about ninety-eight degrees, 
and set this pail in one end of the bath tub. 

Then get a sponge, not too soft, about four to six inches in 
thickness when wet. Get any good soap, wet the sponge in the 
water in the pail, soap the sponge, then begin at the top of the 
body, high up on the neck, and all around; rub this part only, 
but rub it thoroughly; then rinse the sponge under the faucet 
of the tub, and re-soap it and repeat the process and the rub¬ 
bing. Rinse thorough and wipe the neck very dry, and start 
zone number two, which is the upper chest and upper arms. 
Give this zone two soapings; then a final rinsing and wiping. 
Zone number three is the lower half of the chest and around 
the trunk down to the hips. Zone number four is the body 
from the hips or waist to the knees; and the fifth zone is the 
final portion of the body. Each zone must be completed be¬ 
fore the next one is given attention. 

MAGNETISM is developed in this manner. You will soon 
learn its value, when you come to realize what a fine glow of 
vital energy and magnetic force is generated in zone number 
one while number two is being bathed; and so on, step by step, 
along the whole body. By the old way of bathing, no mag¬ 
netism is generated, but much is lost. 

COLD WATER bathing not only closes the pores of the skin 
and locks in the deadly poisons, but it gives the nerves a shock 


Nature’s Doctors 


291 


from which they do not easily recover. The nerve cells of life 
in the body are often wholly emptied of their stored up vitality, 
and this re-acts on the brain tending to great irritability, and 
finally to insanity. One of the greatest nerve doctors of mod¬ 
ern times, had for his hobby the idea of hardening the body by 
cold water bathing; he taught it, prescribed it, and practised 
it; but on his death bed at the age of thirty-eight, a really 
young man in years but aged in looks, he confessed that cold 
water bathing had ruined his health by destroying his vitality. 
We know of three nerve specialists who became insane and so 
died in middle life, who were ardent advocates of cold water 
bathing. 

One of them said in the last year of sanity, “I have been 
mistaken all these years. I have observed thousands of men 
and women who were cold water bathers, and I have never 
yet seen one of them who was not abnormally irritable, show¬ 
ing a loss of vital energy.” 

Now to return to the bath in the empty bath tub. 

First, you ask why not run water in the tub, and bathe in 
it ? The answer is, it soon gets dirty with skin urine, and can¬ 
not be cleaned without losing it all; and hot water 1 is not al¬ 
ways as abundant as cold. 

Second, you ask why not use a bathing cloth? The answer 
is that a sponge gets into the skin, and digs the dirt and urine 
out; the cloth does not. 

Third, you ask how the water in the pail can be kept clean 
all the time? The answer is that you rinse the sponge under 
the spigot as soon as used each time, then dip it in the pail, 
to which more hot water can be added from the bath tub spigot; 
and less than one tenth of the hot water is thus used on each 
bath than in the old way. 

Fourth, you ask why not bathe the whole body at once and 
save time. The answer is, you do not save time, as can be 
proved; and then you do not generate magnetism. The latter 
comes from the two currents of blood temperature, the cool un¬ 
der that part which is wet, and the warm under that part that 
has just been wiped dry. Everybody knows that the electricity 
of thunderstorms is generated by two currents of air; one hot, 
the other cold; and when these meet, then comes the magnetism 
of the sky. 


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Complete Life Building 

If you wet the whole body at once and wipe it at once, there 
are not conflicting currents of warmth and cold, to produce a 
re-action. They must be both present at the same time, not 
consecutively. A very pleasing test is made as follows: Bathe 
the neck and chest, or zones one and two at one time; get them 
thoroughly wet, then dry this section as thoroughly as possible. 
As soon as dry, wet the remaining part of the body, and let it 
stay wet for several minutes. Here you have two counter cur¬ 
rents of blood flow; cool and warm. The bath room should 
not be cold, seventy degrees being normal for bathing purposes. 
These two currents occur simultaneously; while the chest and 
neck are dry, the middle of the body is wet. This means that 
the neck and chest have generated a vital warmth against the 
cool blood currents of the middle of the body. As circulation 
is going on every second of time, thes§ conflicting currents will 
produce a high degree of magnetism. 

When some one says he does not think this possible, tell him 
that the proof is in trying it. 

So valuable is this method of building up vitality that it has 
been adopted for the cure of tuberculosis, and is succeeding to¬ 
day; but with the following variations: the upper part of the 
body is subjected to water somewhat hotter than blood heat; 
and the middle of the body to water about seventy degrees, or 
colder than usual in bathing, which is best done with blood 
warmth in the water, and seventy degrees in the room itself. 
The food must at all times follow the rules stated in this book, 
so that perfect blood will be forming all the time. It is not 
good judgment to use bad food, and expect good blood. 

In bathing normally leave the water of the same temperature 
as when you begin, not less than blood heat, ending that way. 
The pores will remain open and will not be weakened as when 
very hot water is used; and there will be no need of the cold 
water to harden the pores. 

If y°u have only opportunity for one bath a day, let it be 
at night just before retiring, if you have not eaten within two 
hours a regular meal. Otherwise, take the bath before break¬ 
fast. Bathing when the stomach is empty is necessary if you 
are a tea drinker; for the use of tea so quiets the nerves that 
they do not have the power to carry the heat currents to the 
skin, and paralysis follows. At all public bathing places you 


Nature’s Doctors 


293 


will see the notices: Do not bathe within two hours after eat¬ 
ing. The reason for this notice has been frequently explained 
as based on the fact that many cases of paralysis have occurred 
when persons bathe too soon after a meal. Over two hundred 
instances of paralysis have been called to our personal atten¬ 
tion where the shock took place IN THE BATH TUB; and 
investigation showed that the victims had bathed too soon after 
a heavy evening meal; and EVERY ONE OF THEM WAS 
A TEA DRINKER. 

COMMON SENSE 

The conscious brain has considerable influence at times over 
the functions of digestion, respiration and circulation; but these 
functions in turn build the brain. 

During sound slumber the brain has no influence whatever 
over these functions, but is built and strengthened then by 
them. 

When the diet is unbalanced the brain is weakened; when 
false foods are used the brain becomes erratic by their poison¬ 
ous influence. 

The tormenting or profanity foods produce irritability of the 
brain to such an extent that criminal irresponsibility follows at 
times, and is far more genuine than the emotional insanity that 
has set so many real criminals loose and caused such widespread 
distrust of courts and judges. 

Advice on matters of health is as common and as free as 
air; and consists generally of random suggestions or distorted 
accounts of some quack methods that may or may not have 
coincided with certain cures. 

Some doctors seek popularity by telling their patients that 
they can eat anything they desire; other doctors do this to in¬ 
crease their practice, as these professional gentlemen are now 
crowding each other by their numbers and need all the revenue 
the business can be made to yield. 

The strictly honest and honorable doctor first of all gives im¬ 
mediate relief in distress; then straightens out the diet by using 
the Ralston system, either knowingly or otherwise. 

A patient who is operated on has to pay many times the fees 
that would be charged without an operation; and it is the 


294 Complete Life Building 

most vicious of all customs to allow the doctor who advises 
an operation to share in the division of the fees as is the case 
everywhere. All doctors are human and are easily tempted. 
Thousands of cases of unnecessary operations occur every year 
on this account. 

The surest way of avoiding an operation is to start NOW 
and adopt the Ralston system of health. 

Every doctor has it in his power to increase the illness of 
his patient by certain prescriptions; and so create a vast 
amount of sickness among his patrons. Some wealthy people 
are kept always on the verge of serious illness by this practice, 
and feed fat the purse of the doctors who attend them. Many 
nurses are parties to this plan of making money. Both pro¬ 
test violently that these charges are terribly untrue. 

The safest way to escape such dangers is to live right. No 
Ralstonite need ever fear such practices as are known to be in 
vogue and on the increase, if he starts at once to take care 
of himself. 

It is a mistake to believe that diseases generally are inherited. 
No disease whatever is or can be inherited that has not its 
origin in syphilis or venereal taint; and this is Nature’s pun¬ 
ishment for a sin that has been universally committed in de¬ 
fiance of the laws of Nature herself; a sin that, if it were not 
punished by the most horrible of all suffering and consequences, 
would wipe out the whole human race in two generations. It 
is a contest between the determination of man to secure per¬ 
sonal liberty and the determination of Nature to teach man 
that personal liberty is only another name for unbridled licen¬ 
tiousness; with Nature ahead at the present time, and some 
men a close second. 

Insanity, paresis, paralysis, locomotor-ataxia, epilepsy, can¬ 
cer, tumors, abscesses, and a train of attendant maladies could 
not possibly exist as inherited diseases unless syphilis laid the 
foundation for them in some generation, not more than six steps 
remote; for which reason you should turn to the Index in the 
end of this book, find the subject Syphilis, and read and re¬ 
read many times all that is said about it. 

All other diseases with the exception of those that originate 
in inherited or acquired syphilis taint, have their origin in the 
congestion of the membrane running upward and downward 


Nature’s Doctors 


295 


from the stomach. Thus we have only two primary causes of 
sickness and ill health. This fact is of the utmost importance 
as it tells us where to look for sickness and where to check it 
in the fountain heads. 

The two primary causes of disease often require secondary 
causes to set them going; thus the many germs take advantage 
of congestion to start their increase, for a congested mem¬ 
branous surface is their soil, without which they are helpless; 
and cancer requires the inhalation of tobacco smoke into the 
lungs to mix with the blood, or the contact of the leaf of to¬ 
bacco on a scratch or wound, before the latent malady begins 
to take root; while congestion helps to rapidly develop brain 
and nervous troubles. 

Inherited taint from syphilis, even six generations back, may 
remain dormant in the life of a person until congestion ex¬ 
cites it into activity. 

This brings us down to congestion as the most prevalent cause 
of nearly every malady and disease. 

Congestion always starts in the stomach. It is caused solely 
by what enters the mouth; false foods and some liquids being 
always responsible. 

When congestion has begun in the stomach by causing lesion 
of the walls of that organ, this injury travels upward and 
downward; upward to the passages of the throat and mouth, 
and ultimately the nose, and back through the bronchial tubes 
to the lungs; setting in motion more than fifty different kinds 
of disease and trouble, even ending in pneumonia; not one of 
which could have existed had there not first been congestion in 
the stomach. 

Catarrh of the nose and throat can easily be traced to con¬ 
gestion that started in the stomach; and when one is removed, 
the other ceases; which is to say that the quickest cure of 
catarrh is to remove stomach congestion. This has been proved 
many thousands of times. And the quickest cure of many 
chronic maladies is by the same method. 

Congestion is always due to false foods, and certain drinks; 
and is never cured until the TRUE FOODS are used instead. 

Bronchitis, asthma, laryngitis and several other chronic trou¬ 
bles have their origin in stomach congestion, aided of course by 
germs in many cases; and their cure is not in the usual method 


296 


Complete Life Building 

of destroying the germs, but in destroying the cause which is 
congestion. The germs have a large reserve army to take their 
places, and they will always thrive as long as congestion is 
given them as a soil to grow in. 

Tuberculosis can easily be traced to congestion as the first 
or basic cause; and it cannot possibly exist when this cause 
does not exist. Here we see in all these diseases the value of 
the TRUE FOOD'S as both preventive and curative agencies. 
All intelligent doctors agree with us in this proposition. 

When you wipe out all congestion, you have wiped out all 
diseases except those that are due to inherited syphilitic taint; 
and as these usually require congestion as the secondary or 
inciting cause, your main fight is and always will be against 
congestion. 

Since there is no other cause of congestion than false foods 
and some false liquids, it should be an easy and simple matter 
to eradicate from human life practically all sickness; and at 
the same time to nail a sign on each and every doctor’s office 
and drug store, bearing the legend, “CLOSED PERMA¬ 
NENTLY: MOVED TO THE COUNTRY.” 

Surgeons and dentists will always be needed, as automobiles 
must reap their daily harvest of maimed and broken limbs, and 
people will fall down stairs, slip on the ice and invite injuries 
from countless sources. The teeth also need attention as they 
are tools of digestion. 

A defective bridge that is looked after and repaired before 
a complete breakdown, or a locomotive that is put in proper 
condition before it becomes weak and unsafe to use and thereby 
a wreck is avoided that might have cost scores of lives, are no 
more important than the human body; and the good old motto, 
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” still holds 
sway as the best evidence of wisdom. 

It is no idle dream that doctors and drugs will pass out of 
our civilization. But accidents will require surgeons. Yet it 
is a well proved fact and one that Government experts have 
shown to be true, that ninety-five percent of all accidents are 
preventible. Taking this fact as a basis, the public education 
that has been going on for the past few years, will be extended 
until at least ninety percent of all accidents will cease; then 
what will that proportion of the surgeons do? 


Nature’s Doctors 


297 


Doctors and surgeons might be expected to abuse the Ral¬ 
ston Health Club as the arch enemy of their professions; but 
we do not antagonize them; we seek to lessen the evils of dis¬ 
ease and suffering, while it is for the material and money in¬ 
terests of doctors to witness their increase. It is a fact that 
there are thousands of honorable doctors who are genuinely de¬ 
sirous of permanently curing people, but they are in the 
minority. 

Carelessness, disregard for the laws of health and safety, and 
a defiance of the elements, bring many persons to death’s door; 
if they are not hopelessly selfish they will consider the conse¬ 
quences before they embark on such foolhardy business; as 
they drag others down, and saddle on others the burden of 
needless sickness; they must be nursed, waited on and attended 
by relatives or others whose time and duties are stolen by this 
greed of selfishness. 

Going from a warm room to stand in a doorway saying an 
endless goodby in chilly weather to some warmly clad individ¬ 
ual whose chatter is the only clue to his mental powers, has 
brought countless thousands down to the end of life with pneu¬ 
monia. Have enough backbone to either invite the chatterer 
into the warm room to finish his goodby, or else ask him to 
excuse you at once. 

The human body is an electrical storage battery and machine; 
its vitality is drawn out by dampness and by cold exposure. 
Dry warm surfaces are non-conductors; cold, damp or wet ones 
are very active conductors, and they soon take away from you 
your life essence. Friend meets friend on a cold sidewalk in 
a city or town; they stand and chat; the ground is cold, per¬ 
haps damp; they have rubbers on; but their feet become chilled 
just the same; both catch a severe cold and do not know where 
they got it. 

Persons who become subject to paralysis either from inherited 
taint of syphilis, or from tea drinking, or drug taking, need 
only a draft to bring on a stroke. Any chilling draft will 
suffice. Standing in a doorway, or sitting at an open window, 
or riding in a car where the window in front of you is open, 
may bring on the stroke. Many thousands of cases have had 
this history. Standing on damp sidewalks has had such results. 

The body will generate heat to meet its need; and will de- 


298 


Complete Life Building 

cline to do so when artificial heat is too abundant. Thus the 
hare legs of the Scotch do not feel as much cold as the over¬ 
clad legs of the French. If you put on more clothing and have 
less heat in your home, the body will develop more natural 
warmth and it will be of better quality; but if you heat your 
house above seventy degrees and take off clothing to correspond, 
the warmth of your body will not be natural; it will come from 
without when it should be generated within. We have seen 
butchers in their shirt sleeves in their shops where the tempera¬ 
ture was under forty, waiting on their shivering customers who 
were amply clad; and the butchers had red cheeks, while their 
patrons were pale and of sickly complexion. 

If you toast your feet against any artificial heat, you will 
drive back the circulation and stop the natural generation of 
warmth. The more you coddle and nurse your feet with arti¬ 
ficial heat, the more you will have to do so. If you wish to 
train them to furnish their own heat, over-clothe them in a 
cold atmosphere; put on two, three, or even four pairs of stock¬ 
ings, and heavy shoes, and walk out where it is cold. If you 
have cold feet in bed at night, put on mesh stockings of some 
kind, silk being the best; one, two, three or four pairs, and get 
into a cool bed; soon the circulation will become normal and 
the feet warm. 

Never put wool against the skin; it is unwholesome. Mesh 
undervests are the right kind; light in weight with open mesh. 
Wear two of them at a time; more if cold. The undervest 
that is next to the skin will absorb the poisons from the pores, 
while the other undervest will act as an insulator, keeping the 
natural warmth in the body and keeping out the cold. A sin¬ 
gle undervest, no matter how heavy, will act as an absorbent of 
skin poisons, and at the same time will conduct away much of 
the natural heat of the body. 

Bed clothes and also all clothing that comes in contact with 
the skin should be changed often. The pores are created to 
exude poisons in a moisture that is akin to urea; this dries 
soon on the clothing and becomes an irritant that results in 
skin disease. Here we have a frequent cause of erysipelas, and 
of meningitis, as well as boils, carbuncles and many forms of 
skin eruptions. Not long ago a bank president told us that he 
suffered from erysipelas, and asked us the cause. We said it 


Nature’s Doctors 


299 


was the urea from bed clothes or underwear that had not been 
changed often enough. He got angry, as was to be expected, 
but had sense enough to carry on an investigation, and found 
that we were correct; and had the manliness to admit it. But 
it was humiliating to him. 

The greatest man of this age, Edison, says that health re¬ 
quires loose clothing; and he recommends also the wearing of 
stockings too large, and of shoes too large, with heavy soles. 
Here is wisdom. 

The purpose for which the nose was created has been lost 
track of by humanity. It has sponges or filters intended to 
sift the in-going air; but most noses are not taxed with in-going 
air; they never are allowed to inhale. If you snore it is be¬ 
cause you inhale through your mouth; and nature never in¬ 
tended the mouth to be used for any passage to the lungs. 

While congestion is the primary cause of sore throat, diph¬ 
theria, tuberculosis, catarrh, bronchitis, and similar troubles, it 
must be joined by germs in the air; and these germs cannot 
get past the nose filters; so they depend on mouth-breathers for 
their success in killing people. 

If you form the habit and insist on nose breathing in the day 
time, you will breathe through the nose at night when asleep; 
and these germs will stay outside. 

Catarrh of the nose never attacks nose-breathers; it comes 
only to mouth-breathers. It finds the nose a vacant tenement 
and it moves in. But as two trains cannot pass each other on 
the same track, so both catarrh and constantly moving fresh 
air cannot abide in the nose at the same time. 

It may be necessary to devote some time each day to special 
training of the nose; but as it is small and has never had much 
attention except during hay fever season, it might be just as 
well to favor it a bit and tender it a course of exercises in respi¬ 
ration. Get the passages clear. Inhale always through the 
nose. To make mouth breathing impossible, seal it up with 
sticking plaster. Doing this when retiring at night after your 
nasal passages are fully open so that you will not suffocate, is 
merely following the teachings of a great French doctor. But 
it may not be advisable as a general rule. Try will power and 
habit instead. Keeping the mouth shut voluntarily is sure to 


300 Complete Life Building 

bring the same result, and add to your popularity whether 
awake or asleep. 

A very unusual but effective cure for somnambulism, or 
walking in the sleep, is that of sprinkling large sized tacks on 
the bedroom floor near the side where the walker gets out; he 
will not take the first step, and philosophers say that if the 
first step is not taken, the rest will be avoided in anything. 
But we would not advise this method except in extreme cases 
where life might be in danger. 

Some inventive genius is asked to think up a substitute for 
kissing. When lips come against lips, if you could see what 
is on each pair of lips, you would omit the salute. Children 
should be taught to kiss on the cheek, like the French masculine 
custom. It is said that there are three kinds of pneumonia 
germs that lurk on all lips no matter how clean they may be; 
and that the germs of tuberculosis never leave the air that sur¬ 
round the body, always alighting on wet places. But germs do 
not begin to increase until the soil is at hand and the resistance 
of the body is lowered. It is because of this that people can 
take chances with their kissing. On the other hand it is true 
that diseases and epidemics have been spread by kissing on the 
lips. This has been shown to be the fact among children, where 
cleanliness of the teeth and mouth is not insisted upon as among 
lovers who have little else to do in their courting hours. 

Ninety-nine mouths out of every hundred have one or more 
decayed roots of teeth, and here we have another source of 
danger. The saliva is poisoned by an infection that even in 
some cases will set up certain forms of insanity, and that will 
poison all food that enters the stomach. It should be the phys¬ 
ical religion of every person to have all decayed teeth and roots 
removed. Yet all these mouths are intent on kissing. 

Some people think that tobacco chewing furnishes an anti¬ 
septic against the mouth germs. This is wholly untrue. Peo¬ 
ple also believe that the juice of tobacco when not swallowed, 
escapes the circulation. Here is another mistake. Tobacco 
juice enters the circulation in the mouth itself through the 
glands; and does not have to be swallowed. Of course only 
about five percent so enters, but it gets in the blood. If you 


Nature’s Doctors 


301 


let a piece of candy melt in the mouth, the glands will take it 
all, and not a drop will enter the stomach; yet it has gone into 
the circulation. Tobacco is an antiseptic, but in a limited way, 
and every antiseptic is a poison; so why put this poison in the 
blood to pass through the heart and cause what doctors call 
“the tobacco heart/’ or into the stomach to cause the “tobacco 
stomach”? All chewers of this weed put a steady proportion 
of the juice into the blood, heart and stomach through the ab¬ 
sorbent glands of the mouth, although they may never swallow 
a drop. 

Under the law of self-preservation established by Nature for 
emergencies, a starving person is given power to digest many 
things that are at other times wholly indigestible. Grass, wood, 
leather and decayed grease have been eaten under such circum¬ 
stances and aided to prolong life. The degree of hunger often 
determines the power to assimilate unfit things; and in a 
more normal way often accounts for things not hurting that 
would generally do great harm. 

Stomach troubles are intensified by lack of hunger. A filled 
and clogged intestinal canal will deprive the stomach of its 
normal hunger. This canal gets clogged by heavy evening 
meals. The best way of relieving it is to eat very little of any 
substantial food after the noon hour. It has been said by more 
than one medical adviser of the highest ability and experience 
that the habit of eating heavily at the last meal of the day or 
at any time after midday, accounts for lack of appetite and for 
inability to digest many kinds of wholesome food. In other 
words, a stomach that is not eager for food is not healthy. 

What suits one person will not always suit another. You 
should know your helpful foods as well as you know your chil¬ 
dren or relatives that live with you in your home. This means 
that not all the true foods will agree with you, especially until 
your health is greatly improved. Make a list of those that 
agree with you best; and of those that stand second in this 
quality; and finally of those that are the least helpful to you. 

For the convenience of our Members we repeat here the list 
of foods which cause Congestion, and which are known as 


302 


Complete Life Building 


THE PROFANITY FOODS 

Bacon; Cheese; Pork; Lard; Sausage; Doughnuts; 
Crullers; Pastry; Fried Ham; Fried Meats; Fried Fish; 
Fried Potatoes; Crisps; Chips; New Bread; Pancakes; 
Corn Flakes; Fried Egg Plant; Fried Eggs; Saratoga 
Potatoes; Tea; Coffee; Baked Beans; Old Beans; Old 
Peas; Sweet Potatoes; Yams; Marmalade; Fried Oys¬ 
ters; Mincemeat; Clams; Crabs; Terrapin; Lobster; 
Suet; Goose; Turnips; Cabbage; Radishes; Cranberries; 
Cucumbers; Peppers; Pickles; Vinegar; Catsup; Pea¬ 
nuts; Peanut Butter; Spices; Dried Currants; Fruit 
Cake; Gelatine; Coconut; Pickled Meats; Salted Meats; 
Smoked Meats; Smoked Fish; Pickled Fish; Old or 
Fibrous Vegetables and Crisp Surfaces of Meats or other 
food; Chocolate in common use; Candies not home 
made; Oily Nuts; Gravies; Dressings; Sauces; and Fancy 
Breads and Cakes. 

In summing up the story of rescue from illness and prema¬ 
ture death, from the pain and expense of sickness, we have 
merely to say: 

1. Avoid the profanity foods; each and all of them; and their 
kith and kin; that is, all foods that are not suited to the human 
system. 

2. Use the TRUE FOODS. 

3. The profanity foods not only set going each and every 
malady and trouble of body and nervous breakdown, that is 
not inherited; but— 

4. They may unexpectedly arouse into malignant activity the 
inherited taint that follows in the blood from preceding genera¬ 
tions, which would otherwise lie dormant all through a long life. 

5. By avoiding all the profanity foods and depending solely 
on the TRUE FOODS, ill health will vanish, and the supreme 
climax of perfect health will be reached; and 

6. By adopting Ralston Regime life will be prolonged with 
all faculties in perfect condition long past the age of one hun¬ 
dred years. 


Nature’s Doctors 


303 


EXAMINATION FOR RALSTON HONORS 


Any person, Member of Club, or not, may try for Ealston Honors 
which are secured by answering correctly the majority of the questions 
below. The answers are on the reverse side of this page, but must not 
be looked at until the replies have been made to these questions: 

1. What was a LANCE in the olden times? 

2. Why so called? 

3. How did the poisons get in the blood? 

4. What was a LEECH in later times? 

5. Why so called? 

6. How did the poisons get in the blood? 

7. Why were lancing and leeching faulty systems? 

8. What is a PHYSICIAN in our times? 

9 . How is this name derived? 

10. W,hy does he physic his patient? 

11. How do the poisons get in the body? 

12. Why is physicking a faulty system? 

13. Why do people take pills to such an extent that train loads are 

required every week to supply the demand? 

14. How do the poisons get in the body? 

15. Why do doctors sweat their patients? 

16. How do the poisons get in the blood? 

17. Why is physicking when combined with sweating not a perfect 

system for removing the poisons from the body and blood? 

18. What is the only perfect system for driving the poisons from the 

body and blood? 

19. In what way do the true foods do this? 

20. Why are the true foods strengthening instead of weakening? 

21. What are the two primary causes of all sickness and disease? 

22. What are the secondary causes? 

23. What develops the inherited taint into disease? 

24. What is CONGESTION? 

25. What is the cause of congestion? 

26. What cures the inherited taint if not deeply seated? 

27. What cures congestion? 

28. What is the result of perfect freedom from congestion? 



304 


Complete Life Building 


ANSWERS TO EXAMINATION ON 
PRECEDING PAGE 


NOTE.—Do not write answers in this book. Use separate paper. 

The numbers below correspond with the numbers of the Examination: 

1. A lance was a doctor who believed in using the lancet to bleed 

his patients. 

2. He was so called because he bled his patients with a lancet or 

lance, in order to draw out of the blood the poisons that made 
them sick. 

3. The poisons got in the blood by putting into the stomach food 

and drink that were false to the needs of the body. 

4. A leech was a doctor who bled his patients. 

5. He was called a leech because he used a leech to suck out the 

poisons in the blood that caused sickness. 

6. By false foods. 

7. Because they took good blood, and not all the bad. 

8. A physician is a doctor who physics. 

9. Because his first step is to empty the bowels of his patients. 

10. To drive out the poisons that are in the body. 

11. By false foods. 

12. Because it drives out only the contents of the intestines. 

13. To drive out the poisons that are in the body. 

14. By false foods. 

15. To drive out poisons that are in the blood. 

16. By false foods. 

17. Because it removes only a small proportion of the poisons. 

18. One brief fast, followed by the TRUE FOODS. 

19. They take the place of all the poisons, and generate none. 

20. Because they contain the only strength giving material in exist¬ 

ence. 

21. Inherited taint; and CONGESTION. 

22. Germs, low vitality, and impurities. 

23. Inherited taint may lie dormant for a lifetime if not developed 

into activity by congestion. 

24. Congestion is soreness or lesion of the stomach always to begin 

with, which spreads throughout the whole body, exposing and 
lacerating the fine nerve surfaces and preparing soil for nearly 
all the diseases that flesh is heir to. 

25. Congestion is caused by false foods and drinks. 

26. The TRUE FOODS slowly but surely cure inherited taint. 

27. The TRUE FOODS cure all congestion. 

28. Youthful conditions without regard to the passing of years. 



BUSINESS DEPARTMENT 

OF THE 

RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


Conducted 

by 


RALSTON COMPANY 

OF 

HOPEWELL, 

NEW JERSEY 


INFORMATION BUREAU 






306 


Universal Mind 


RALSTON MAXIMS 


FIRST MAXIM.—All Diseases come from one of two Sources; are 
due to one of two Causes; and have no other origin. 

SECOND MAXIM.—One Source of Disease is inherited Taint in the 
blood; due to virulent conditions in the ancestry of the patient. 

THIRD MAXIM.—The other Source of Disease is Congestion of the 
Stomach; which is lesion of the membrane-surface that rapidly spreads 
and involves all adjoining membranes to the farthest limits of the vital 
section of the body. 

FOURTH MAXIM.—'All Diseases, in addition to having a Source as 
stated, begin activity through the agency of Germs or Poisons. 

FIFTH MAXIM.—What are known as Germ-Diseases are those in 
which Germs attack Congested Membranes, enter the congested soil, 
and set up rapid growth until the health or life is endangered. 

SIXTH MAXIM.—What are known as Poisons are those materials 
that are foreign to the needs of the body, that do not make blood, nor 
enter into the making of the body, but that attack its life. 

SEVENTH MAXIM.—Ninety-eight percent of all Diseases would be 
forever eliminated and disappear if Stomach Congestion could be 
overcome. 

EIGHTH MAXIM.—There is but one origin of Stomach Congestion, 
and that is the use of False Foods and materials that are foreign to 
the needs of the body. 

NINTH MAXIM.—All Diseases that are due to inherited Taint can 
be overcome slowly but surely by the use of the TRUE FOODS, as 
they possess not only the exact needs of life and health, but are in¬ 
tensely curative. 

TENTH MAXIM.—All Diseases that are due to Stomach Congestion 
are easily cured by the TRUE FOODS; and as such Diseases embrace 
nearly all that flesh is heir to; and as the TRUE FOODS are exceed¬ 
ingly abundant and easily obtained, there should be no need of sick¬ 
ness and disease in the world. 



Universal Mind 


307 


INFORMATION BUREAU 

Strangers, or those who for the first time become acquainted 
with our work, seek information on a number of points; and 
these we will proceed to answer briefly: 

1. What is membership in the Club ?—Answer: It is wholly 
voluntary on your part. 

2. Does buying or owning a book make one a member?—An¬ 
swer: No; the book is sold like any other book, and whoever 
buys it may treat it like any other book; and there the matter 
ends as far as the Club is concerned. 

3. How, then, can one become a member ?—Answer: By mak¬ 
ing that request to the Ralston Health Club, Hopewell, New 
J ersey. 

4. Is it necessary to own a book in order to become a mem¬ 
ber? Answer: No. Any person may become an “Outside 
Member” on application. 

5. What kind of memberships are there?—Answer: There 
are three kinds of membership: “Outside” for those persons 
who live according to the teachings of the Club, but who are 
not able to buy the book. Then there is “General Member¬ 
ship” for those who own the General Book of Life Building, 
known as the 115th edition. And, finally, there is “Complete 
Membership” for those who own this present Book of Complete 
Life Building. 

6. Is it necessary to own the General Book of Life Build¬ 
ing?—Answer: No. When we issued this “Golden Jubilee” 
book we included in it in succinct form, the principal values 
of the General Book. We did this so that it would not be 
necessary to buy both books. 

7. What, then, is the advantage of the General Book?—An¬ 
swer: It is much lower in price, and enters into many details 
of explanation of health matters, plans of meals, and an in¬ 
finite variety of helps that could not be contained in this book 
of curative treatments without making a book too bulky to be 
useful. It also contains the temporary Degree System of the 
Club, for those persons who wish to take up several lines of 
self-improvement designed to make use of health in the great 
battle of life. 


308 


Universal Mind 


8. Does the owner of this Book of Complete Life Building 
have to buy any other book?—Answer : No. This is the first, 
last and only book on the subject of health that is needed. In 
any other matters, we cannot prevent you from buying such 
books as you choose, for your library, or for training and edu¬ 
cational courses for self-improvement. That is for you to decide. 

9. What are the duties of an Outside Member?—Answer: 
To take an interest in keeping well so that unnecessary sick¬ 
ness will not put a burden and expense on others which could 
easily be avoided. The careless person who gets sick loses 
time and money, and often imposes on the time and money of 
others who are compelled to take care of such person. This is 
unfair to relatives or to friends. Think of this. 

10. What are the duties of a General Member?—Answer: 
Get well and keep well. 

11. What are the duties of a Complete Member?—Answer: 
Get well, keep well, and secure for the Club five other persons 
who shall become Owners of the Book of Complete Life Build¬ 
ing. 

12. Do the other Owners of the book have to become Com¬ 
plete Members?—Answer: No. 

13. In what time is it necessary to secure five new Owners?— 
Answer: You will have five years for this; and as the 4 ‘ Golden 
Jubilee Book” is a very handsome volume, and the most use¬ 
ful book ever printed, it is for these and many other reasons 
the BEST PKESENT you can make to a relative, a friend, 
or an acquaintance. One such present a year will not tax your 
resources, and will solve that most troublesome problem in the 
holidays, of what you shall get for your friends. Do you know 
that some men and some women of moderate means, buy our 
health books in lots of a dozen or more, up to a hundred at a 
time, to give to strangers who are in need of restored health? 
WHY ? Because if you make people well, you add to the wealth 
of the nation to whatever extent their earning powers have been 
increased. 

14. What help do you give to people who own the Complete 
Life Building Book, who are sincerely desirous of doing good 
in the world by spreading the influence of this the most bene¬ 
ficial of all systems of health?—Answer: Despite the fact that 
our claim may not be accepted as true by strangers, we never- 


Universal Mind 


309 


theless refuse to accept any profits; although it is agreed on 
all sides that we are more entitled to them than medicine makers 
and doctors, as we cure and prevent sickness, and end it for¬ 
ever. But we seek only to spread the influence of our system 
in order to help others. 

15. But is there any special offer attached to this Complete 
Book?—Answer: Yes. During the period through which we 
are passing, called the “Golden Jubilee” of the Ralston Health 
Club, celebrating its fifty years of existence, we are making a 
concession that will prove that a profit is impossible. This con¬ 
cession is published in the pages following this Bureau. And 
we will say that there are people who will give one million 
dollars more to see the influence of this “Golden Jubilee Book” 
of Complete Life Building, reach every intelligent family in 
the land. Can you see the advantage to the nation, and to 
those who are out of health, in the swift, far-reaching spread 
of this great system? 

16. Is it necessary to secure new Owners for the Complete 
Book at the slow rate of one a year? Suppose they can all be 
secured in one week, will that suffice?—Answer: Yes. If you 
do this, then you will have performed the only troublesome 
duty, which is a pleasure to many members. 

17. If one accepts the concession referred to, that is taking 
five books with the new Shaftesbury training course, as offered 
in the following pages, will that enable one to fulfil this duty, 
even if such five copies are bought at half price, and even if 
the entire training course known as “RIGHT” is included as 
the author’s present?—Answer: Yes. The whole group will 
cost only the price of the training course, which has been placed 
by the author at TEN DOLLARS, with five free copies of Com¬ 
plete Life Building worth twenty dollars. When you get these 
five copies you can place them in the hands of deserving people 
as gifts, but if you sell them the price must not be more than 
TWO DOLLARS per copy; as we are pledged that no one shall 
make any profit from this book except Agents. 

18. How can this concession be obtained: buying five books 
worth four dollars each for two dollars apiece, and receiving 
with them the entire training course of “RIGHT” with no 
charge for that system?—Answer: Only during this “Golden 
Jubilee” period, and by copying the enclosed FORM OF AP- 


310 


Universal Mind 


PLICATION. If you remove it from the book, or remove any 
part of any page, you cannot have this concession. 

19. If books of Complete Life Building that sell readily for 
four dollars each, can be obtained from the Club for two dol¬ 
lars each, will there not be a temptation to sell them at full price 
and so make a profit?—Answer. If this is done except by 
Agents we shall hear of it sooner or later, and it will place the 
member in a very bad light. 

20. But agreeing that no honorable member will sell the books 
for more than two dollars a copy, can a member send more than 
once for the group of five copies of Complete Life Building, 
with one copy of the other book, 4 ‘BIGHT,'’ free; that is, this 
group of six books, listed at thirty dollars, for ten dollars; and 
repeat the order, or get as many books at the same rate at one 
time as a member wishes?—Answer: During the 4 ‘Golden 
Jubilee” period, it is our purpose, even at a loss, to spread the 
influence of these the greatest of all great systems; and we will 
not place any limit on the orders for these books in the groups 
of six for ten dollars, but such books must be either given or 
sold to persons who will be worthy of them, and must be made 
to do a great good. Further, in place of the five copies of 
Complete Life Building and one of the larger work, “RIGHT,” 
the member can buy six copies of Complete Life Building for 
ten dollars during this limited period, and may sell them for 
two dollars each, or any price under that sum. When you con¬ 
sider the mechanical cost of these books, the immense fortune 
that was spent in their preparation, and the lifetime of obliga¬ 
tions to our Complete Members, you will see that they are sold 
at a price that is much lower than cost; for which reason the 
period of this concession is limited. 


Universal Mind 


311 


ADVICE TO AGENTS 

1. Any man or woman, young or old, may act as Agent of 
the Ralston Health Club; either as a steady occupation, or 
temporarily. 

2. There are two kinds of Agents: SUPPLY AGENTS and 
ACTIVE AGENTS. 

3. A Supply Agent is one who keeps on hand a supply of 
Books of Complete Life Building, in order that all persons who 
know of the book and wish to secure copies without delay, can 
do so immediately; and thus save loss of time in ordering and 
the bother of forwarding remittances. As there are hundreds 
of thousands of people who will wish these books without wait¬ 
ing to send for them, any Supply Agent who makes the fact 
known of having on hand a supply of these books, will earn a 
large income with no effort whatever. 

4. An Active Agent is one who, after stocking up with a 
sufficient number of these books to meet the demand, makes a 
business of finding buyers. One book in a community will soon 
make business lively; as the book speaks for itself; and news 
of its miraculous cures will spread like wildfire. 

5. The PRICE to Agents is as follows: For one dozen copies 
at a time on one order, thirty dollars. For one copy at a time, 
three dollars. During the present period, for a limited time, 
the Concession Prices will prevail, as follows: One copy, three 
dollars. One dozen copies on one order, twenty dollars. One 
hundred copies on one order, $167. One thousand copies on 
one order, $1670; and same rate for any larger number. It 
would be a wise piece of financiering for any person who can 
afford it to secure one or more thousand copies at the prevail¬ 
ing prices, for the following reasons: 

6. The demand for good health books of this class is rapidly 
increasing. In one city last year, one edition of a health work 
sold at four dollars a copy at the rate of more than a thou¬ 
sand copies per day; and buyers were lined up all day long 
in principal stores, eager to get them. This new Book of Com¬ 
plete Life Building is not only the most advanced and most 
valuable of all systems of health, but is alone in its position 
as the only system that never fails; all others do fail at times, 


312 


Universal Mind 


and often; this work never will fail to help and to cure. This 
new Book of Complete Life Building offers more assistance to 
people than any other method. At its Concession rates, be¬ 
sides being bigger than novels, it is offered at less than the 
average price of novels. Last year more than eight million 
novels were sold at prices ranging from two dollars a copy up 
to two dollars and fifty cents and three dollars. Such books 
were read and laid aside. This new Book of Complete Life 
Building is a daily guide for every day of every year; it will 
be equal to 365 new daily novels in each year; and is offered 
at a rate far lower than novels, considering its greater size and 
priceless contents. There is no reason why, when it is made 
known, eight million copies should not be sold in one year. For 
these reasons, it would be an act of wise financiering to lay in 
a stock of one thousand copies or more in this Concession period. 

7. If you will adopt our advice, we suggest that if you be¬ 
come an Agent, you limit your profit to one dollar a copy. If 
you buy one at a time for three dollars each; sell for the reg¬ 
ular price of four dollars. If you buy one dozen copies at a 
time, you will pay only $1.67 each; and you should be content 
with one dollar profit, selling each copy for $2.67. This dollar 
profit is net, as we pay all cost of sending by mail or express 
to you. Some Agents in large cities will possibly sell five hun¬ 
dred to a thousand copies per week. In smaller places the 
sales, after the book is known, should reach one hundred copies 
a week; but even only twenty copies a week would bring a fair 
income. It is vital, however, to have on hand a supply that 
will not keep applicants waiting, as delay causes loss of interest. 

8. Another point: In all large and small cities, towns and 
villages every year, ninety percent of the people suffer from 
grippe, influenza or colds, as well as countless other maladies. 
They suffer, and suffer; they pay doctors many dollars, and 
buy medicines without relief. This system in the Book of Com¬ 
plete Life Building, STARTS AT ONCE WITH QUICK RE¬ 
LIEF, and puts an end to all sickness. But people will NOT 
WAIT; they cannot wait; they need help without delay. 
Hence, have on hand a goodly supply of these books, the great¬ 
est health classic of all time. 


“GOLDEN JUBILEE" 


CONCESSION TERMS 


FIRST.—The applicant must own for his or her exclusive use a copy 
of the book of Complete Life Building; and this copy must be kept 
where it can be consulted frequently; daily if possible. 

SECOND.—The applicant must agree not to buy, sell, use, or have on 
hand any goods or other things made by any factory or concern bear¬ 
ing the name of this Club or any part of the Club’s name. 

THIRD.—The applicant agrees not to make any profit in selling 
copies of Complete Life Building; but to permit others to buy them at 
whatever price is paid for them; the purpose being to spread their use¬ 
fulness far and wide so that great benefits may come to all who are in 
need of help. 

FOURTH.—The applicant agrees to encourage this great movement 
in the hope that sooner or later a copy of the book of Complete Life 
Building shall come into every home; and, as far as possible, into the 
hands of each member of every family in the land; and that it shall 
result in the universal use and study of this important system of health. 

FIFTH.—This concession is to apply only to payments made at the 
time of using the FORM OF APPLICATION, and not to include any 
sum paid previously or in any other way; else the Concession will be 
refused. 


FORM OF APPLICATION 

COPY THE FOLLOWING- FORM—IT WILL BE INVALID IF RE¬ 
MOVED OR IF ANY PAGE, OR PART OF PAGE, IS TAKEN OUT 

To RALSTON HEALTH CLUB: 

HOPEWELL, Mercer County, New Jersey. 

I have read the Terms of the Concession and will abide by them. I 
enclose ten dollars for five copies of Complete Life Building, and one 
copy of “RIGHT.” 

(Or, instead, for six copies of Complete Life Building.) 

My name and address are. 


NOTE:—Erase line showing books not wanted. Remit by money order of 
>ost office, or express company, or by bank draft. Personal checks of parties not 
laving dealt with us will have to be collected before order can be filled. 


313 







RIGHT” 


A Personal Educational Course 

For Home Study Reading Mental Improvement 

A Scientific Demonstration of the Existence of the 
Universal Mind as the Controlling Power 
Over Human Life 


BY 

EDMUND SHAFTESBURY 


THE LATEST AND THE GREATEST OF THE 
SHAFTESBURY WORKS 


It is needless to say that Edmund Shaftesbury stands in the fore¬ 
rank of the world’s most esteemed teachers. His long list of works 
that have been published during the past forty years will be found 
catalogued in the Congressional Library of Washington; and these 
works have influenced the lives and brought success and power to some 
of the most prominent men and women not only in America but through¬ 
out the civilized world. 


SHAFTESBURY IS THE AUTHOR OF THE “GOLDEN 
JUBILEE” EDITION OF LIFE BUILDING 







RIGHT 


The Battle Ground of Existence 


“HUMAN LIFE IS WRONG FROM THE CRADLE TO 
THE GRAVE ’ ’ 


Nothing could be more wretched or deplorable than the mistakes, fail¬ 
ures and disasters attendant on human existence. YOUTH is filled with 
hopes that are never realized. EARLY YEARS witness the bitter 
struggles to get a foothold on the heights of success. MIDDLE LIFE 
faces the collapse of all efforts to win substantial happiness. MATURE 
YEARS are full of worry that shorten existence. And OLD AGE tot¬ 
ters to the grave amid deprivations and sufferings that mark the pass¬ 
ing of that span of emptiness known as life on earth. This is all wrong, 
as are the countless wars, the embittered conflicts, the increasing crimes, 
and the unchecked prevalence of sickness and distress. 

AND HERE “RIGHT” 

asserts itself along every step of the way. The curtain is lifted that 
hides all the best things of existence. Because of its unusual literary 
merit, its method of bringing the most valuable help home to the life 
of every reader, and the world-wide influence of its teachings far sur¬ 
passing all other works of man, this Book of RIGHT will be pronounced 
the GREATEST CLASSIC OF ALL TIME. 


THIS BOOK OF “BIGHT” 

Is the Greatest Friend of the Human Race; the Greatest 
Friend of Every Man and Woman on Earth To-day; the 
Greatest Friend of Those Who are Unable to Combat the 
Vicissitudes of Existence, Who are in Deep Trouble or Per¬ 
plexity, or Who Need Guidance Into the “New Light.” 


<( As a book for reading only it is easily worth much more than its 
price. It far surpasses in importance the whole fabric of knowledge 
taught by the greatest universities. As a guiding system in life, it 
cannot be replaced by instruction costing thousands of dollars. Back 
of it are forty years of investigation into over one hundred thousand 
facts and incidents, aided by a vast amount of auxiliary help from 
countless sources. ” 







RIGHT 


MIGHTY SYSTEM is the ultimate analysis of 
Civilization. It, or something that must be its equiv- 
<3 I £> alent, will be adopted by common consent, or else the 
vgjjgr shores of life will be strewn with human wreckage. 

To learn how to discern that which is right; how to 
be right in all matters, great and small; to be one hundred per¬ 
cent “RIGHT”; is the noblest and the grandest of all studies. 
It lifts humanity out of the routine dullness of existence into 
a realm as lofty as that pictured in sublime story. 


The entire course is presented in a BIG VOLUME, printed on the 
best paper in clear, large type, and bound in best cloth and gold. 

All the instruction, all the reading matter, and all the mental delights 
of the rich, beautiful and inspiring influences and powers of MIND are 
set forth in this great literary Classic, complete in the volume. 

We guarantee absolutely that you will find this the most valuable 
and the most important system of personal help ever offered mankind; 
and we know positively that you will so inform us after completing its 
delightful teachings. 

In order to place so great a work within the reach of all persons who 
may desire to receive its benefits, we have made the price only TEN 
DOLLARS. This price has been pronounced exceedingly reasonable, 
when the statement quoted is considered: “Back of it are forty years 
of investigation into over one hundred thousand facts and incidents, 
aided by a vast amount of auxiliary help from countless sources.” For¬ 
tunes have been spent in the preparation of the work before its pro¬ 
duction was possible. 

The entire course may be had at this time for TEN DOLLARS. 

Send money order or bank draft to 


RALSTON COMPANY 


HOPEWELL Mercer County NEW JERSEY 











INDEX 


Acute Indigestion . 182 

Adulterations . 87 

Air When Poison. 28 

Alcoholism Caused . 182 

All-Nature Cures . 181 

Almonds, Digestion of. 79 

Anemia and Congestion. 25 

Angelic Wife . 178 

Apoplexy Prevented .. 183 

Appendicitis Prevented. 183 

Apples, Digestion of. 79 

Apples, Facts about . 126 

Apples, When Not Mellow.... 87 

Arrowroot . 79 

Artichokes ... 83 

Asparagus, Digestion of . 79 

Asthma and Congestion. 25 

Asthma Cured . 184 

Automobile Accidents . 6 

Auto-Suggestion Failures .... 144 

Bacon .... 86 

Baking Powder . 52 

Bananas, Facts about.127 

Barley Bread . 86 

Barley, Pearl . 79 

Bathing, Cold Water .291, 

Bathing, Facts about . 288 

Bath, Shower . 291 

Beans, Dried . 85 

Beans, Green . 83 

Beef, Digestion of . 79 

Beef Juice. 78 

Beets, Digestion of. 79 

Beets, Old .. 84 

Beginning of Life. 36 

Beriberi from Bice . .. 53 

Bleeding . 63 

Blood Pressure Cured. 184 

Boils and Carbuncles . 187 

Bones, Making of . 37 

Brain Irritability . 180 

Brain of Man and Animal.... 43 

Brains, Making of. 42 

Bran . 87 

Bread, Digestion of . 79 

Bread, New. 83 

Brown Bread . 85 

Bright’s Disease . 186 

Buckwheat . 83 

Building a New Body. 159 

Building the Body. 65 

Butter, Digestion of. 78 

Buttermilk . 79 

Cabbage .j. 84 

Cake . 79 

Calcium Chloride. 208 

Calcium .-. 51 

Calcium Discussed. 57 

Calories, Facts about . 141 


Cancer and Tobacco . 189 

Cancer, Erratic Growth. 46 

Cancer of Throat. 47 

Cancer, Six Generations. 242 

Cancer When Inherited. 26 

Candies and Chocolates. 90 

Capon .^. 83 

Carbon ..— . 50 

Carbuncles and Boils. 187 

Card Playing Women. 10 

Carelessness . 297 

Careless Sickness. 9 

Caramels, Balston ... 117 

Carp . 83 

Carrots . 83 

Catarrh Cured . 189 

Catsup . 87 

Cauliflower . 84 

Cautions as to Food. 81 

Cave Man, Climax of Life.... 31 

Celery, Baw or Cooked. 7S 

Cheese, Ordinary.. 86 

Cherries, Digestion of. 79 

Chestnuts . 79 

Chewing Food . 66 

Chewing on Empty Stomach . . 70 

Chicken . 83 

Chicken Broth . 79 

Chocolate and Cramps. 197 

Chocolate, Digestion of . 79 

Chlorine in Salt. 52 

Circulation of Blood. 27 

Clams . 86 

Coconut . 87 

Cocoa, Digestion of . 79 

Codfish . 83 

Coffee, Facts about. 139 

Coffee, How Made.>. 99 

Colds and Sore Throat. 195 

Cold Sores . 196 

Colitis and Colonitis. 21 

Common Sense . ;... 293 

Congestion, Cause of . 194 

Congestion Discussed . 19 

Congestion of Stomach. 276 

Congestion, the Enemy. 280 

Constipation Cured. 195 

Controlling Poisons. 28 

Cornaro, Louis . 15 

Corn Canned.. 84 

Corn, Green. 79 

Corn-Stalk Foods. 97 

Corn Meal.>. 79 

Corn Starch . 79 

Crabs . 85 

Crackers . 79 

Cramps ... 197 

Cramps and Paralysis . 198 

Cranberries . 87 


317 



















































































































318 


Index 


Cravings and Diet. 178 

Craving, Intense. 71 

Creator and Human Body .... 60 

Cream, Digestion of. 79 

Cream Cheese . 83 

Crime to be Sick. 8 

Crisp Meats and Foods . 87 

Cucumbers and Radishes. 87 

Currants, Dried .... 87 

Dangerous Ages . 254 

Dandruff and Loss of Hair.... 198 

Dates, Digestion of . 79 

Dead Tissue . 72 

Diabetes Discussed . 200 

Diabetes and Water. 25 

Diet for Summer. 274 

Diet for Winter . 273 

Diphtheria Cured . 204 

Disease and Death . 29 

Diseases from False Foods . .. 180 

Diseases Not All Inherited... 294 

Disease, Two Causes of. 75 

Distillation . 170 

Docile Temper Ruined. 180 

Doctors All Going. 296 

Double-Baked Bread . 79 

Doughnuts and Fritters. 86 

Drinks as Food . 98 

Ducks .... 85 

Edison and Cornaro . 24 

Eggs, Fried . 70 

Egg, Raw Yolk of. 78 

Egg, White of . 78 

Egg Yolk Cooked . 79 

Empty Stomach, Chewing on.. 70 

Enemies of Life.. 72 

English Walnuts . 86 

Epidemics of 1876 . 14 

Epidemics of Grippe. 22 

Eye-Curative Movements _206 

Eyesight and Health . 204 

Eye-Wash Home Made.,. 205 

Fads and Fancies . 141 

Fasting for Health. 160 

Fatty Degeneration . 206 

Feeble-Minded Age. 26 

Figs, Sterilized . 79 

Fines for Ill-Health . 8 

Fireless Cooker . 263 

First Bread Making. 31 

First Cause of Sickness. 14 

First Renewal of Life. 66 

First Vineyards . 31 

Fish Must be Fresh . 83 

Five Hour Class . 85 

Five Minute Class. 78 

Flounder . 84 

Flour with Bran Out . 79 

Food Becomes Poison. 28 

Foods Discussed... 81 


Food Facts . 

Foods of Civilization . 

Foods Not Digested Together. 

Foods, Supposed . 

Foods That are Not... 

Foods That are Vicious. 

Four Hour Class . 

Fourteen Elements . 

Fruits and Cautions . 

Fruits, Facts about. 

Fruit Puddings and Cakes ... 

Fruit Syrups . . . . 

Frying Pan Dangers. 

Gas on Stomach . 

Gastric Juice . 

Gelatine .. 

General Life.. 

Germs Wait for Congestion..] 

Glucose . 

Goose . 

Gouty Affection . 

Government Tests . 

Grapes, Facts about . 

Graham Bread . 

Growth in Sleep Only . 

Growth of Hair. 

Habits of Life . .. 

Haddock . 

Hair Loss and Dandruff. 

Hair Growth...] 

Hair Loss and Foods. 

Halibut . 

Ham, Boiled . 

Ham, Fried . ]]]]]]] 

Hardening of Arteries.] 

Hay Fever and Calcium . ] ] ] ] 
Hay Fever and Congestion.... 
Hay Fever and Rose Cold.... 

Headaches Prevented . 

Health Communities . 

Hearing When Failing 

Heart-Beat, Making . 

Heart Failure. 

Heart Weakness. 

Herring, Fresh. ****** 

Herring, Smoked, etc. .]].]]] 

Hominy, Digestion of. 

Honey, How Used. ]]]]]] 

How Life is Built. ]]]]]] 

Human Body, The_ .]]]]]] 

Human Hair and Foods ] ] ] ] ] ] 
Hunger and Starvation 

Husband Careless . ]]]]■] 

Ice Water, Value of ....]]]]]] 

Increase of Disease . 

Indigestion Acute . ]]]]]] 

Indigestion Cured . 

Influenza Prevented ...... 

Infringement Penalized ] ] ] ] ] ] 
Initials and Round Table.]]]] 


93 

256 

76 

96 

96 

179 

85 
49 
82 

124 

86 
90 

132 

67 

67 

87 

65 

21 

118 

86 

186 

29 

126 

83 

151 

40 

74 

83 

198 

40 

56 
83 

85 

86 
210 

57 

25 

207 

208 
261 
209 

45 

48 
209 

83 

85 

78 

269 

35 

49 

26 
69 

9 

121 

14 

182 

213 

213 

50 
16 














































































































Index 


Inherited Diseases . 

Insanity Prevented . 

Insomnia Cured . 

Intelligence of Brain . 

Iron . 

Irritability . 

I WILL REGIME. 

I WILL NOT REGIME. 

Jellies Home Made . 

Junket . 

Kidneys, Growth of . 

Kidney Trouble . 

Knowledge Revolutionized ... 

Lamb . 

Lard as Food. 

Lard, Facts about. 

LAW OF LAWS . 

Leeches and Lances . 

Lentils .. 

Lettuce . 

Life and Death Battle. 

Life Enemies . 

Liquid Foods . 

Liver as Food. 

Liver, Diet for. 

Liver, Growth of. 

Liver Influences .. 

Lobster. 

Lockjaw .... 

Long Time Foods. 

Lungs, Growth of .. 

Macaroni . 

Maekerel, Fresh . 

Making Bones..... 

Making Brains . . t . 

Making Skin . 

Maladies Increasing. 

Malaria . 

Maple Sugar and Syrup. 

Matinee Girl’s Sickness. 

Meats, Facts about. 

Meats, Cooked Hard. 

Membranes of Brain . 

Mental Poisoning . 

Methods of Methodists . 

Milk and Bread First Used... 

Milk, Facts about. 

Milk, Kinds of. 

Milk Toast . 

Mincemeat. 

Mineral Oil Dangers. 

Moss, Kinds of . 

Mutton . 

Needs of Body, Fourteen. 

Nervous Prostration . 

Neurasthenia . t . 

Neuritis . 

Neuralgia . 

New Body, After Building.... 
New Body, How Built. 


319 


New Knowledge .147 

Never Class Discussed. 87 

Never Class Foods. 87 

Numbness and Cramps. 197 

Nuts, Caution. 86 

Nuts, Limited. 83 

Nuts, Pecan and Hickory. 85 

Nuts, Oily Kinds. 86 

Oat Groats . 83 

Oat Meal . 59 

Oat Meal Discussed . 83 

Old Age Solvents . 169 

Olives . 80 

One Hundred Percent. 49 

One Hour Class. 79 

Onions, Boiled . 80 

Onions, Fried . 86 

One-Food Meals. 274 

Operations Unnecessary. 293 

Oranges, Facts about . 128 

Oriental Diet . 53 

Oriental Foods Bad. 61 

Over-balance of Foods . 53 

Oxygen . 50 

Oyster Plant. 85 

Oysters, Fancy Roast. 83 

Oysters, Fried . 86 

Oysters, Raw . 80 

Palate Pleased . 68 

Pancakes . 83 

Paris Law . 7 

Paralysis, Infantile . 228 

Paralysis, General. 228 

Paresis . 230 

Parsnips . 83 

Parts of the Body. 36 

Past Life Battles. 30 

Pastry and Patties . 86 

Pastry, Facts about . 134 

Peanuts . 86 

Pearl Tapioca. 81 

Peas, Dried . 85 

Peas, Green . 80 

Pellagra and Food . 55 

Peppers and Pickles. 87 

Pigeon, Young . 83 

Piles Cured . 230 

Pneumonia Prevented. 231 

Poison Removers . 64 

Pork Cooked Crisp . 86 

Potatoes as Food. 58 

Potatoes, Facts about. 107 

Potatoes, Fried . 86 

Potatoes, When Best . 107 

Potatoes, White. 80 

Potatoes, Old . 83 

Powdered Egg Yolks .266 

Prehistoric Food . 31 

Preservatives . 91 

Prevention That Prevents .... 7 


294 

213 

215 

62 

51 

217 

282 

285 

83 

79 

42 

218 

35 

79 

86 

130 

55 

64 

83 

79 

34 

72 

66 

85 

244 

42 

223 

85 

224 

102 

42 

80 

83 

37 

42 

39 

32 

224 

79 

8 

113 

86 

180 

146 

17 

31 

111 

80 

80 

86 

132 

80 

85 

49 

226 

226 

228 

224 

166 

153 


V 




















































































































320 


Index 


Primitive Evening Meal. 31 

Primitive Malady . 32 

Primitive Man . 31 

Profanity a Food Malady .... 232 

Profanity Diet. 232 

Prunes, Cooked . 80 

Rabies . 233 

Radishes. 87 

Raisins . 80 

Ralston Discoveries . 25 

Ralston Regime . 281 

Raw Foods Limited. 264 

Raw Whites of Eggs. 271 

Regime for Each Day. 281 

Repair by Sleep Only .226 

Rheumatism and Food. 25 

Rheumatism Cured . 284 

Rice and Beriberi . 53 

Rice, Natural . 80 

Rickets and Food . 56 

Right Foods . 52 

Ripening of Body. 27 

Rolling of Bowels . 67 

Rose Cold and Hay Fever. 207 

Round Table of 1876. 14 

Round Table of 1926. 17 

Rules of Life . 66 

Rye . 83 

Saccharin. 117 

Sago .'. 80 

Saliva, Antiseptic . 66 

Salmon . 85 

Salmon, Red. 266 

Salsify . 83 

Salt as Food . 57 

Salt, Common . 51 

Salt, Facts about. 121 

Salt, Many Kinds. 121 

Salt, When Poison. 122 

Saratoga Chips. 86 

Sauces and Gravies . 86 

Savage Tribes, Habits of. 194 

Scalp Diseases . 198 

Scalp Growth . 40 

Seaweed as Food. 61 

Second Cause of Illness. 14 

Secret of Safety . 14 

Sickness When Impossible ... 60 

Sight Failing . 205 

Sixteen Diseases . 33 

Shampooing the Scalp . 26 

Shrimps . 86 

Skin, Making of . 39 

Skin Wrinkles . 56 

Sleep and Brain Repair. 293 

Smelt . 83 

Smoker's Cancer . 47 

Sodium in Salt. 52 

Sole . 83 

Solid Food Chewing . 66 

Somnambulism Cured.300 


Sore Throat and Colds. 

Soup and Bouillon. 

Spark of Life. 

Spinach .. 

Spinach with Fat . 

Stimulants, Desire for. 

Stomach, Congested . 

Stomach Congestion ... 

Stomach, Growth of. 

Stomach Troubles . 

Suet . 

Sugar, Digestion of. 

Sugar, Facts about . 

Summer Diet . 

Sweet Potatoes and Yams. 

Symptoms of Danger . 

Syphilitic Afflictions. 

Tapioca, Not Pearl. 

Tea and Paralysis. 

Tea, Facts about. 

Teeth Troubles .. 

Three Hour Class . 

Tides of Human Life. 

Times of Digestion. 

Toast Buttered. 

Tobacco and Cancer. 

Tobacco, Not Antiseptic . 

Tobacco and Syphilis. 

Tomatoes . 

Trout .] 

True Food Benefits.]. ’ ’ * 

True Foods Balanced. 

True Foods of To-day ....... 

True Foods Listed.. [ * 

Tuberculosis .[ * * ’ 

Tumors and Abscesses'!!!!!!! 

Turkey . 

Turnips . !.!!*.! 

Two Causes of Disease. 

Two Hour Period . 

Two Kinds of Life 

Typhoid Prevented.. 

Under-balance in Foods. 

Variety of Meals. 

veal . ;;;; 

Vegetables . 

Vegetarians. 

Venereal Taint and Cancer !!! 

Venison . 

Vermicelli .*'* 

Vitamins, Facts about. 

Water, Distilled . ... 

Water When Poison.. ’ ’ * 

Water, Value of. 

Wheat, Facts about. 

Wholesome Food Poisons .... 

Winter Diet . 

Wrinkled Skin and Foods .... 

Yeast, Facts about . 

Yeast, When Hurtful .. 


195 

78 

145 

80 

85 

27 
21 

276 

42 

236 

86 

78 
115 
274 

85 
251 

237 
80 

229 

136 

244 

84 
148 

76 

79 
189 

46 

193 

83 

83 

171 

269 

262 

255 

246 

115 

83 

86 
75 
83 
65 

249 

53 

104 
83 
82 

114 

193 

85 

80 
143 
260 

28 
100 

105 
75 

273 

56 

131 

131 





























































































































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